A Perfect Circle
by The Dark Duran
Summary: It's been one year after the Carnival. A long and bitter silence has manifested between two HiME, and if Natsuki continues refusing to embrace the security and affection Mai offers, there will always be a bend in the perfect circle. Mai/Natsuki, post-HiME
1. Annihilation

_A/N: To any veteran followers of this story, you will realize this chapter has been very much revised. Others that are seeing this for the first time, thank you for taking the time to read this, and welcome to A Perfect Circle. This is the first serious fanfiction I have officially written and posted on the internet, hence why I've gone back and edited some of it. _

**_Some Things to Touch Upon: _**_There is explicit material all up in here, such as drugs, alcohol, moderate to intense violence, language, nudity, sexual content, horrific images, and other nice things. Also, I must disclaim that I did not create Mai HiME, and that all characters associated in this fiction belong to Sunrise Inc. I wrote this fiction in order to dwell upon the mysterious relationship between Natsuki and Mai and to what extents it could have (and should have) gone, while also experimenting with the socialism of the HiME after their rebirth._

_Now that all that's said, I want you to sit back and hopefully enjoy the emotional rollercoaster that I've attempted to portray._

* * *

**A Perfect Circle**

**Annihilation  
**

* * *

_"I am here to tell you a story._

_This story will torture your thoughts by day_

_And poison your dreams by night._

_...Though I will do my best..._

_There are no words that may be spoken_

_That can depict the stark and utter horror_

_Of this gorgeous tragedy."_

* * *

Darkness and fire. A never-ending cycle, whirlwinds of flames in the pitch black manifested through a field of empty night. The bleeding cascade diminished as the tips of burning hate dissipated into the dark blue sky, illuminated by the only light of an enflamed moon. It was cold if not for the unnaturally hot winds cascading through the intervals of darkness. The moon seemed to grow in size; a soft, seething red glow glided across the surface. Off in the distance, an overture of chimes rung cryptically, one by one, into a tune. Whispering associated this tune, shallow and angelic, as the fires danced in a frenzy of condescending destruction.

_From dehumanization to arms,_

_Production._

_For the benefit of the nation,_

_Or it's destruction?_

Blood was whipped viciously across white walls. There was the earsplitting crying, the incessant wailing. Bones cracked, and there was screaming. The sight of fire still reminisced as quick flashes of feminine figures covered in blood, desperate eyes, twisted eyes stood in an awe to something. Noises of torture coursed over the howl of the flames and repetitive carillon, and a church bell tolled, exposing its image of corrosion as flames overtook the dying structure.

_Power is power._

_The law of the land._

_Those living for death_

_Will die by their own hand._

Even though the bells continued, the sound of flames, of vicious wind and screaming and church bells stopped. There lay a woman, A beautifully tragic portrait of hair the color of fire and eyes chiseled from amethyst jewels, holding in her shaking embrace a struggling young boy, hair and eyes a softer chestnut. He clutched his chest, blood seeping from his palm, from the corner of his breaking lips. Red trickled sadly through his eyes in replace of tears. The woman was staring at him, screaming. But there was no noise, no voice, only the song of the bells echoed through the darkness as a beautiful girl watched her dearest brother fall lifeless in her arms.

_Life's no ordeal,_

_If you come to terms._

_Reject the system_

_Dictating the norms._

"Gakutenou!" The voice of a woman cried as the ravaging flames re-surfaced. An unnatural roar emitted into the air and shook the scorched earth, with sounds of tearing and shredding and catastrophe. Screaming commenced. Another female's voice yelled, pleading.

"Miroku!" A flashing image of splattered blood came and disappeared, and there was the sound of metal ripping through flesh. Proceeding was more crying, more screaming. The cycle was endless.

"Gennai!" A blinding flash of light overcame all sound and sight. There appeared a dimension of emptiness, a world of utter silence and white. In the center of empty white, a noose laced around a woman's neck, holding her to an eternal ceiling. Dark-eyed, pale-skinned, her long, drying hair fallen timidly around her shoulders, all she did, with a lifeless, blood-red gaze and mirthless smile, said,

"Kiyohime."

The image burned under the oppressive vision of fire.

_Power is power._

_The law of the land._

_Those living for death_

_Will die by their own hand._

Again and never ceasing, the endless cycle raged on. The fire, the grand collapse of the church as its bell falls, the haunting sounds of women screaming and crying. The names of mythological entities being cried out in despair. _Gakutenou, Miroku, Gennai, Pegasus, Diana, Julia...Kiyohime._ Suddenly, the screaming hushed, and diminished into the flames as they too faded away, leaving complete darkness. The beautiful woman with fire-red hair knelt lifelessly onto the ground, head bowed. There was a tangible silence. Then the bells played their music.

_From dehumanization, to arms._

_Production._

_To hasten the nation_

_Towards its destruction._

_It's your choice..._

She lifted her head to the black world. With eyes closed, her lips parted.

_Peace, or annihilation?_

" Kagutsuchi."

And everything exploded.

White sheets writhed violently as a woman yelled, jerking up hysterically from her bed-ridden state and becoming so disgruntled with excitement and fear, that she fell out of her bed and onto the floor. There was heavy and phrenetic breathing, and she frantically lifted herself to her feet as her knees trembled, shocked, traumatized emerald orbs looking frantically left and right against the darkness of her bedroom. After a moment of silence, save shaken, heavy breaths and a harshly pounding heart, Natsuki relieved herself and sighed with an uneven breath she didn't realize she was keeping in. She wiped the cold, uncomfortable sweat from her forehead with a hand that shook because of unstable, spastic nerves, and her cold fingertips trailed down her cheek slowly before her arm fell against her side. Shifting a chunk of blue hair onto her shoulder, she tiredly sat down on her bedside, placing her face into her hands and squeezing her aching head, feeling her temples pulsate.

"Fuck..." She groaned, hands sliding down her pale face. Natsuki lifted her head up lethargically and her deeply bruised eyes gazed dumbly into the wall. She stood and toiled her way through the creaked door, out through the hall shroud in blue darkness of the moonlight, and walked into the kitchen. She opened a cabinet, which it creaked loudly, took out a plastic cup, and halfheartedly closed the door so that it lingered open. She pressed the lever on the fridge that emitted water, bringing the chilled drink to her pale lips. She gargled it down in seconds, the ice-cold liquid flowing through her throat and diminishing her cottonmouth. Then she tossed the cup into the sink from the other side of the kitchen and winced, as the impact of plastic against the metal created a loud bang that disrupted the lonely silence. Drudging sleepily to her couch, she sat down indolently and stared with dull eyes at the clock on her DVD player.

4:03 a.m.

"Every night..." She mumbled, holding the remote in her hand. She realized that consistent rambling from the television wouldn't ease her mind, so she dropped the remote onto the couch, laying her head back against the cushion to look up at the ceiling. Her bare feet were on the wooden coffee table, and her heel clanked against something that fell. Natsuki jerked her head and sat upright, lifting the picture frame slowly, to which portrayed herself, and Shizuru holding her around the waist from behind with an angelic, warm smile. Her grip tightened against the frame.

"Shizuru...Why..."

_Will I ever be able to sleep at night?_

After she swallowed the anguish that was making her throat sore, she sighed, and put the picture back down on its front. She lowered her weary body, weaker now, onto the couch, and closed her heavy eyes, waiting for sleep to accompany her bitterness.

But no sanctuary waited for her there. Only whispers and nightmares.


	2. Awaken

_A/N: Again, thank you to all of my faithful readers. As I continue editing the earlier contents of this story, I hope it becomes even more enjoyable for you._

* * *

**A Perfect Circle**

**Awaken  
**

* * *

_"You were waiting and living for no one,_

_With the way you tried_

_To completely refuse all your life."_

* * *

"Mai…" A young voice whispered.

The girl groaned.

"…Mai…" She prodded.

The girl continued to sleep.

"…MAI!" A scream was heard when Mikoto lodged herself at the sleeping Mai, sending her flying out of bed with the blankets tangled around her. Both her and Mikoto lay in a bundled mess on the floor. After a few seconds of silence, Mai groaned loudly and slowly sat up, eyes still shut due to the lack of energy to open them, trying to rid herself of the sudden nausea in her head. Mikoto's head popped up with a blanket covering her. "Mai?"

The blanket was torn off her face, and revealed her blinking in a dumb expression whilst looking at an irritated Mai with her eyes just barely open, trying to fixate her vision on the wild girl. "Mikoto…"

In a response to her name being said, she grinned foolishly and wrapped her arms around Mai's waist, who grunted, then sighed and sat there. "You're usually the one to wake me up, Mai!" She stated too energetically for headache-induced girl, who rubbed her throbbing forehead.

"Y'know…" She began tiredly. "I'm pretty sure you're old enough to where you don't have to glomp me out of bed. And I have a headache, Mikoto. So, I'd appreciate it if you toned it down a bit this morning." She slowly stumbled upward onto her feet, kicking off the annoying sheets, ruffling her loose, white t-shirt.

Again, Mikoto blinked. Then she smiled a bit softer than before. "Sorry Mai. Do you want aspirin for the headache?" She asked more calmly.

Mai nodded slowly, making her way across the floor to the dining room. "Please…" She trailed off as she went through the opening and sat in the wooden chair. She heard Mikoto scatter off behind her, into the bathrooom, then she dropped her head heavily against the table, and winced, forgetting about her headache and regretting it shortly after. Of course, over the course of the year, she watched as Mikoto matured into more of a woman, or at least, as much of a regular human woman that she could become. To her surprise, she noticed the wild girl's appetite was a lot healthier than when they first met. Mai's food would still be instantaneously devoured the second it reached the table, but still. Not to mention Mikoto's rapid shyness to when it came to bathing together. After a few months passed, she could notice - and feel - the curves in her body, and her muscles dramatically increase in size and regulate in tone with her body. Mai decided it was time Mikoto take baths on her own, because, let's face it, even she knew Mikoto had the drop dead body of an athlete and the face of a kitten, and seeing such a body whilst rubbing strawberry-scented bath lotion over it wasn't exactly "tempting", but…

Yeah, Mai fucking knew she was lying to herself.

She felt prodding at her arm and turned her head sideways. "Hmm?"

"Aspirin." Mikoto smiled and set two white tablets on the counter, next to a glass of orange juice. Mai sighed softly and sat up, quickly downing the pills and taking gulps of orange juice afterward. She set down the glass and gave a tired smile to the feline girl beside her. "Thanks." She said sluggishly.  
Mikoto nodded her head in her original hyperactive fashion. "Anything for Mai-san. Should I make breakfast this morning?" She asked enthusiastically. Mai just nodded, looking at the table, or through it, seeing as how her eyes looked hollow, too tired and too strained to focus on any particular thing. Her throbbing headache was caused by the malevolent dream she had been having until Mikoto ever-so-forcefully woke her. Soundlessly, she supported her head whilst bending her elbow against the table, continuing to stare off with those softly flaring, dull eyes.

In her dream, there was fire.

"Dehumanization to arms, production…" She whispered idly to herself. "For the benefit of the nation, or it's destruction…Power is power, the law of the land…those living for death, will die by their own hand-"  
She clenched her fists at the image that appeared when she whispered those words back to herself. Takumi, bleeding from his eyes, and she desperately called to him. But her voice was silent. She could almost feel her throat bleeding and burning, but all she heard in the dream, was the chime, as she watched her brother die in her arms. Her headache was surging in a fiery wave through her head, but her sorrow was ignoring it.

"Life's no ordeal…if you come to terms…Reject the system…dictating the-"

"Mai!" Mikoto had said more sharply after the third time.

Mai's eyes flashed open, and in that second she felt the reality of her condescending headache and her breath hitched as she clutched her head.

"Ow, damnit…" She sighed, massaging her temples and opening her still tired eyes. "Sorry Mikoto… I was thinking."

"You shouldn't think so hard with a headache." She smiled softly, then placed a small plate of eggs and toast with a muffin in front of the woman. Mai smiled weakly. "I guess teaching you how to cook was a good idea. Thank you."

Mikoto pouted childishly. "You're welcome, Mai. Uhm… I already ate while making your breakfast…heh…" She flustered and scratched the side of her head. "And Aoi and Chie are coming to pick me up."

Mai nodded slowly, swirling the eggs around lazily before taking a small bite. "Right. You want money, I'm guessing?"

Mikoto made a face. She hated asking Mai for things other than food. "Mhm…"

Mai stood up slowly and walked to the counter where she left her small purse, and rummaged through, pulling out about 200 yen and closing up her purse. "You're going to go from my roommate to the hobo that sleeps up in my attic if you don't get money coming in soon." She stated playfully, ruffling the other girl's hair, that had grown a bit, and handing her the money.

Mikoto smiled just as sheepishly back. "You'd never do that to your best friend."

"Care to test me?" Mai smirked. She saw Mikoto gulp slightly and laughed. Then there was a loud knock on the door, followed by bickering behind the door, and both girls turned around. Mai took her hand slid it back to her side. "I'll get it."

She slowly opened the door, and behind it was Aoi and Chie, not surprising to Mai, kissing. She rolled her eyes, and when Aoi saw the door open in the corner of her eye, she shoved Chie, who of course, acted as if nothing had happened and played an aloof smile. "Morning, Mai!"

"Yeah, yeah…morning lovebirds." Mai smirked at both their blushes and moved herself to the side. "Come in."

"Hmm…eggs?" Chie asked after taking a whiff of the house's scent.

Mai yawned loudly and stretched her back. "Yeah-ahh!" She shrieked and immediately ended her stretch to cover herself when she felt her sides being tickled. She blushed, glaring behind at Chie with her hands reaching for her sides. "Chie!"

"Ah, my apologies Mai-chan. I was just remembering old times." She smiled innocently, then Aoi shoved her.

"Anyway…are you ready to go, Mikoto?" Aoi asked, looking over Mai's shoudker, watching as the wild girl fell whilst slipping on a shoe. She smiled nervously and scrambled upwards. "Uh, of course!" She then smiled a bit more enthusiastically.

Chie grinned her trademark grin, of which made Mai rolled her eyes in a friendly fashion. "That's good. Alright, so we're off!" She exclaimed, gliding her arm over Aoi's waist. Mikoto happily walked up to them against the door. Mai had been looking down in an impenetrable thought. She then sighed softly to herself and looked up. "Guys?"

Both Aoi and Chie looked up and blinked inquisitively. "Yeah?"

"Do you know…anyone we know who might not be busy today?" She smiled awkwardly, fidgetting with the rim of her white t-shirt. "I just need to get out of this house."

And I need to get my mind the hell off that dream. She thought.

Chie was thinking about it, and just as she smirked with a suggestion and opened her mouth to speak, Aoi interfered. "Well, there's always Natsuki-san."

Natsuki? She thought. "Natsuki isn't working today?"

Aoi shook her head. "She has Fridays off. She told us that when she invited us over for a… LAN party, or something." She trailed off with a distant gaze.

"LAN?" Mai raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't really get the joist of what exactly it is… all I know is she beat the over-loving shit out of us on Xbox." Chie added, shaking her head and putting her arms up defensively. Aoi chuckled and nodded in agreement.

Mai laughed softly. "I wouldn't expect less of her in that aspect. Well, maybe I'll call her. I haven't had much interaction with her over the past year, anyway. Checking up on her would probably be a good thing, ne?"

Both Chie and Aoi nodded, but Mikoto emitted a soft growl and was tapping her foot rather impatiently. "Can we go?" She groaned, swirling in a circle on her heel in droning boredom.

Chie rolled her eyes and smiled, putting a hand on the girl's head. "Yeah, yeah. C'mon Aoi."

Aoi smiled and bowed respectively to Mai. "Have a good day Mai-san. I hope the trip to Natsuki's house goes well." She giggled and stood back up, looking back and waving as Chie held open the door, Mikoto frantically jumping out into the world.

Mai smiled and indolently waved back. "Same here. Bye guys." She took the knob and shut the door as they left, and her smile formed into a tired sigh as she leaned her back against the door, eyes closed. The tick of the clock echoed through the audible silence of the house, then Mai opened her eyes slowly. "It's been a while…"

About an hour passed, and Mai had showered and changed, as well as cleaned up the rather ravaged kitchen where Mikoto was cooking. She was now looking down at her chrome red cell phone on the wooden table, and for some reason, it seemed so far away. As if, if she were to reach for it, though it was at arm's length, she would miss, or she would have to reach further. It had been one year. One year since the Carnival. Since the last picnic, the last time Mai had ever seen or heard from Natsuki. Why hadn't she made an effort to contact her, at least visit for the slightest second to confirm her existence? She had thought it didn't matter. That her and Natsuki's encounter had initiated by undeniable circumstances. They were both HiME, bound to fight, bound to kill, bound to meet. Hell, Natsuki should be dead, after the battle against the HiME where only one would be standing. But then, she shook that thought from her mind. That would mean Midori would be dead, and Nao. And Yokino, Akira, even Mikoto.

Why haven't I bothered? She looked dully into the empty front screen on the phone, watching the morning sun perfect it's glare on the side. She sighed, and her arm lifted itself, hesitantly, reaching for the cellphone. It then began ringing.

Mai jumped slightly and looked down shakily at the phone. "What the…" Slowly, she picked the phone up, squinting to read the brightened front screen. Her eyes went wide, and a foreign feeling in her stomach struck her.

"…Natsuki?"


	3. Rememberance

_And again, I feel as thought this is just filler. Nonetheless, it also represents the tension Mai and Natsuki feel toward each other after so long. With the concept that I am both sick and lazy, this is what you get from me. I'd like to thank my reviewers for positive critique on the story. As promised, here's the third installment to this amusing little story of mine._

* * *

**A Perfect Circle**

* * *

The living room was dark, and it felt barren. The icy chill from the outside world leaked through the windows and glazed the screen door over with a thin layer of frost. Natsuki was not bothered by the dry cold, however. She was used to cold climates and harsh conditions, so she remained unphased, staring down with contemplating, heavy eyes at her dark blue cellphone on the kitchen countertop.

The half bottle of sake in her stomach was also helping a bit of the consolation.

"…Kagutsuchi…" The name rolled bitterly off her tongue. She wrinkled her nose afterward. Why had Mai been the last HiME to call their Child in her dream? Why had everything burst into a violent, raging fire afterward? The image of Mai holding Takumi and not being able to scream was forced into her mind. She flinched. She remembered Takumi's bleeding eyes, watched him die slowly. She watched Mai scream, and scream. As if getting through to him just once would keep him alive. What had happened since the Carnival one year ago, Natsuki didn't have a clue. She made a grimace at her realization, that she had some kind of humanly contact with about everyone since those days. She met Midori at a bar, Youko when she had to bring Midori home from said bar, she met Chie and Aoi at the park, and had invited them over for a game of Halo…that she dominated, nonetheless. She even saw Nao performing community service, cleaning up trash in the movie theatres weeks ago. Everyone but Mai.

She sighed. "Why is this such a pain the ass? It's not like I don't like her or anything." She came to the conclusion it most likely felt awkward after not talking to the girl for a year. They killed, fought, and that was it. As if they broke the fork the road and took separate paths, never to be heard from each other again. She sighed at the sudden chill she felt against her neck from the cold breeze shifting its way through the house. She really should close that window.

"Damnit, enough procrastinating!" She said imperiously to herself, putting a hand forcefully on the table, next to the phone. "If I want to talk to Mai, I damn well will. That's my nature, so it's allowed." She stated aloud, pleased with herself. Nonetheless, she did hesitate when she felt the phone in her hand as she lifted it to her ear, finding Mai's number on the contact list, and waiting for an annoying, overly-awake female voice on the other line. Her gaze averted from the table to the wall, her eyes hollowing and the ring seeming distant as it droned on. It suddenly stopped, and there was a short breath.

"Hello…?" A soft voice was heard on the other line, but it seemed hesitant and unsure. Natsuki immediately snapped back to the present situation, the voice echoing through her mind before she could morph her lips into proper words. "Mai…" It was a start.

"Hey, it's been a long time." Nonetheless, her voice was sweet and truthful, like it always had been. Natsuki crossed her arms, holding the phone between her shoulder and her ear and leaned against the side of the kitchen wall. "Yeah, it sure has…" She trailed off as she tried to think of something to say, to no succession.

The other end was silent, save small, calm breaths that crackled against the speaker of the phone. Natsuki furrowed her brow in irritation that there wasn't anything to talk about.

"…So, what have you been up to lately?" Mai slowly broke the silent barrier and attained Natsuki's attention again.

She sighed softly and pushed off the wall, walking aimlessly about the room. "Nothing, really. Just working, trying to get by, that good stuff." She then realized at that moment why it was so hard for her to call Mai in the first place.

She fucking hated talking on the phone.

"For a while, I was beginning to think you didn't like me anymore." There was an innocent giggle from the other side. Natsuki rolled her eyes; there was no way to genuinely feel irritated at anything the girl said, and she found that amusing, considering Mai took everything seriously, and everyone took her seriously, but she never took any particular person, seriously. In that respect, Natsuki returned the feeling.

She snorted. "Funny, I was beginning to think the same thing." She smirked, and it was almost as if Mai could see that smirk over the phone. "Wipe that smile off your face, I know it's there." She replied, condescending as always.

"Yeah, yeah…" Natsuki twirled a blue lock lazily around her finger, glad to feel a little more eased at the conversation. But that awkward air still lingered, an intangible tension between the two voices that were simultaneously close and so far off. Natsuki was the first to come to this conclusion, and she sighed obliviously.

"Natsuki?"

The cobalt woman's eyes snapped open, and she felt her heart beat like a chastised drum for no more than half of a second. Hearing her name said startled her for some reason.

"Are you alright?" Mai asked inquisitively over the phone, hearing a sudden catch in Natsuki's voice that crackled against the speaker. The image of the dream, where Mai sat hopelessly on her knees in the darkness of that dream, where her lips were just about to part to being forth her Child replayed over in her thoughts like a broken record.

"I'm fine…I was just thinking." She lied in a convincing tone. She heard Mai giggle.

"You always manage to worry me, Natsuki." The voice was caring and teasing. Natsuki cleared her throat haughtily and grunted, as if annoyed. "And you always manage to make me feel like I'm in an awkward position."

"Well, you're an awkward person."

"Well I'll never match up to Superhero Tokiha, master of all that is perfect and ideal." She retorted in a mocking tone.

She heard Mai groan. "Still with the sarcasm. I was hoping that would have left when your maturity came along."

"Maturity is a pain in the ass. Besides, sarcasm is what makes me, me, isn't that right?" Natsuki asked indolently, leaning against the icy glass door, unaware of its cold surface.

"Hai, hai…Natsuki?" Mai asked skeptically, the name seeming to shake in tone. Natsuki raised an eyebrow and looked outside the glass door from where she had been staring on the floor. "What?"

"Are you busy today?" Her voice sounded less stressed, with a bit more optimism hidden in tone.

"No, why?" Natsuki asked impatiently.

"I was wondering, if you wanted to catch up on old times. Y'know?" The voice was easy, relaxed.

Natsuki looked behind her. She scanned her living room and kitchen briefly, and seeing as how the area was generally not a train wreck, she emitted a soft sigh and returned her attention to the phone. "Sounds good. You planning on coming soon?"

"I might as well. Are you living in the same place?" There was sudden laughter. "I can't believe I hadn't asked yet."

"Idiot." Natsuki replied idly. "And yeah, I am."

"Alright then. I'll be around soon."

"See you then."

"Bye." Mai finished, and Natsuki clicked her phone off.

She dropped the phone onto the countertop and sighed tiredly, making her way down the hallway and by the bathroom. She twisted open the door and stopped in front of the mirror over the sink, leaning over it and looking up at her reflection. Her eyes looked bloodshot and grey, her complexion was pale, and her hair looked oiled and battered down. She groaned and slid her hand down her face.

--

Steam was still slowly making it's way out from the bathroom as Natsuki stood in the kitchen, tapping her finger restlessly while glancing over the marble texture of the counter. Beside her sat a glass, emerald ash tray, scattered inside were the remains of rolled cigarettes, as well as worse things. On the corner sat a half-smoked joint, it's fiery tip burning off and dissipating into the chilled air. Natsuki, with eyes closed, sighed and took the joint within two fingers and in between her lips, the heated tip scorched into a bright red as its contents was sucked through and morphed into smoke that infiltrated Natsuki's lungs. As it left her lips, her breath hitched at the feeling of smoke coiling in her lungs, invading her breath as it poured out from her lips and nostrils, that of an awaking dragon.

There was a knocking at the door.

"Natsuki?" She heard Mai call out from the opposite side of the door. Cursing under her breath she coughed up the rest of her smoke, and broke the end of the joint into the ashes of the tray, and opened the bottom cabinet, sliding it in behind an assortment of plastic containers before shutting it. She took the can of Lysol atop the fridge and sprayed frantically inside the kitchen, then after setting on the counter, pulled a stick of gum out from her jeans pocket and into her mouth. She sighed, then nonchalantly made her way to the door, opening it slowly, revealing the face of the girl she hadn't seen since that long year ago.

"Hey, Mai." She spoke the words as if they were forced to crawl off her lips. They felt foreign.

Mai had been smiling her casual, warm smile. "Hello, Natsuki." Her right foot appeared to fidget a little; Natsuki had caught it with those soldier-aware eyes of hers. But those aware eyes went wide with surprise when Mai walked past the door and wrapped her arms around Natsuki in a hug. Instinctively, she hugged Mai back, but pushed back the warm flush she felt over her cheeks.

"It's been a while, Mai." The words seemed to flow more easily, a stream that flowed more fluently past the stones and fallen branches than it had before. When she felt the other girl ever so slightly hug tighter around her, Natsuki couldn't help but smile.


	4. Malevolent Tension

_So after reading the Mai HiME forums I just realize just how sick all of you people really are. It can't be helped. Well, it can, but I'm too lazy to make an effort, damnit. Stop making my life more difficult by filling it with strange people with even stranger fetishes!!._

_-ahem- Anyway, here's chapter four._

* * *

**A Perfect Circle**

* * *

A steaming cup of black coffee emitted a white, heated, and pure smoke into the room as Mai lifted it and took a slow sip. She brought the cup down and sighed softly, heated breath visible in the chilled air, and then dissipated into nothing. Amethyst eyes averted upward from their gaze on the table, up into orbs of emerald green that looked back. A silence brewed as the grey sun leaked light behind the clouds, into the living room. After the longing silence, Mai looked down into the table again, a smile played automatically on her face. "This place hasn't changed. You're really not much of a decorator." She said pointedly.

Natsuki snorted, looking over into the coffee mug before, the cream and sugar swirling continuously. "What the hell gave you the idea I ever was?"

"True, true…" Mai sighed with a teasing smile.

"In any case," Natsuki started, before coughing suddenly. Fucking smoke. "…how have things been for you?"

Mai shook off the sharp cough and refocused herself on Natsuki. "Well, they could always be going better, but decent, nonetheless." She continued looking as if she was going to say something, but then picked up her mug and took a sip of her black coffee. Natsuki gazed for a moment, eyes shifting out of restlessness, then she nodded and looked down at her own coffee periodically before picking it up and taking a sip. She sighed, feeling the burnt, fuzzy feeling on her tongue as she put the mug down. She didn't like the feeling in her stomach she was beginning to have from the persistent silence, but it couldn't be avoided. She knew Mai felt the same unsettled sentiment.

Mai swirled the spoon idly in her coffee, looking up slowly. "What about yourself?" She asked gingerly.

Natsuki didn't look up. "Nothing important." She said gruffly. "Working in automotives, thanks to Midori who was able to get me in with a friend of hers. Other than that, things have been nil." Her eyes moved from along the surface of the table to the tears on the knees of her jeans.

Natsuki felt Mai smile, but the air between them felt raw when she asked, "So how has Shizuru been?"

The question numbed her brain and her body. The words were loud and ringing against the walls of her ill-silent mind. Despite her inner distraught, she looked up, an icy surface covering the emotion behind her eyes. "She's on a trip."

Mai nodded in interest. "Is she now?" She felt a sudden feeling of skepticism, as if the barrier over Natsuki's eyes had fallen, for just the slightest second. But Natsuki was gazing at her with hard, crystal eyes before there was time to contemplate. "Do you know where to?" She finished.

"She didn't tell me where. She just left without saying goodbye, really." Her face firmed out and became more relaxed, the undeniable self-hate still lingering.

Mai nodded in understanding. She was about to open her mouth to ask another question. Her breath swirled as it was pushed from her lips.

"I don't know when she'll be back." Natsuki interrupted, and Mai closed her mouth, nodding instead. Natsuki had been glaring into the back of the frame against the table as she spoke. She felt the nerve in her eyelid go into a spasm, but refrained it from twitching by closing her eyes. Mai, opposite of her on the couch, allowed her mind to rejuvenate from the previous tension and took a glance over Natsuki's progressed features since she last saw her. Her hair was about the same length, maybe shorter, and a darker shade of blue. She had been wearing a loose, white tank top, a bit disquieting to Mai and making her feel colder. She gazed briefly over her torso; Her shoulders were leaner, and the muscle had toned out dramatically. Her biceps and forearms were enticingly larger and elongated, but as the tank top clung to the sides of her waist, Mai took in the lack of womanly curves her body had when she last saw her. Her eyes traveled down Natsuki's arms to her hands. They were larger, more rough-looking, probably from the constant work with wrenches and other tools in the automotive field, but they were clean. Mai took the time to consider what it would have been like in the Carnival if that was what Natsuki looked like then. She seemed so much stronger, the aura around her seeming to shroud her in infallibility. Natsuki was strong, more dangerous and cunning than the others. What would have happened if she were this way then? Would things be different than they are now? She would have been deadly. Ferocious. An entity no one could tame. Mai looked over her again, imagining this Natsuki in replace of the younger, one year ago.

She imagined acres of ice covered in blood.

She felt a chill when Natsuki opened her eyes. They were hard, concentrated, intense. She moved her gaze on Mai from the opposite side of the coffee table, and said fiery-haired woman looked away calmly.

"Sorry, Mai." She stated gruffly, rubbing the side of her head. "I'm a bit tired today. And your presence drains the energy the hell out of me." She smirked.

Mai couldn't help but look up and laugh softly. "You weren't necessarily ever the energetic type." Natsuki shook her head proudly, and Mai sighed in a teasing manner. "It can't be helped."

"Damn right it can't." Natsuki enforced. "I like lazy. It de-complicates things." There was a bit of a pause before she stood up and stretched. Mai looked up at her, and her eyes widened momentarily, seeing how far Natsuki's shirt went in to touch her stomach. She wasn't dangerously thin, but she was dramatically more lean, as well as taller. Mai remembered Natsuki's gym class profile that recorded her height at approximately 5'3". If she were to guess, she'd say now, Natsuki was 5'8". Mai knew she had grown somewhat as well, from 5'1" to 5'5", she felt comfortable with herself. But with this reborn Natsuki in front of her, she couldn't deny the feeling of condescending intimidation.

Mai looked away, forcing back the blush she felt after staring for so long. "Uhm, Natsuki?"

"Yeah?" Natsuki replied tiredly, after dropping her arms back down.

Mai looked back up, at her face. "When was the last time you ate?" She asked worriedly, but tried to hide it.

Natsuki stood there, thinking for a moment. Then she shrugged. "A few days ago. Why?" Her tone was nonchalant.

"My god…Natsuki…" Mai's face was stricken, and she slowly stood up. "You really need to eat more than that. Especially in Winter. Your immune system will go to hell if you keep that up!" Her tone was, 'annoying and motherly', as Natsuki liked to put it.

"Tcsh, it's been a year without your nagging, and I've survived haven't I?" She countered.

"Looking at that stomach of yours, just barely."

Natsuki's confident expression subsided, and fell into a pout. Mai just laughed and looked back up at Natsuki, who after a moment of persistent glaring, just sighed and smiled. "That damn smile of yours, I swear." She crossed her arms and leaned against the side of the wall when she made her way over toward the kitchen.

Mai just continued smiling, but perhaps it was a little less innocent. "You can't live without it, right?"

"So true, so true…" Natsuki returned, rolling her eyes with her own wolfish smile. Mai brought herself over and smacked her friend lightly on the shoulder. Natsuki let out a small chuckle, then her eyes fall on the two still steaming coffee mugs on the table.

"Y'know…" She started. "I always thought of you as the sweetened coffee type. You know, the kind that's so annoyingly sweet it gives you a headache and makes you wanna throw up.

Mai only smirked, leaning on the wall next to Natsuki. "And I imagined you as the black coffee type. The kind that's so bland and boring, and it makes people grimace a little bit.

"Just a little bit."

Mai laughed.

--

The day whirled by in a slow blur. Mai and Natsuki talked the day away over nonsense during lunch and dinner together. The sun was falling over the mountains, but the grey skies remained the same color, save for the white sun's luminescence as it fell and protruded its light through intervals of cloud. Mai stood in front of the door, with Natsuki facing her. The air between them was at greater ease than before, and both their faces seemed warm with content, Mai's noticeably more than Natsuki's.

"You haven't changed by much. But I'm glad I took the time to see you again, Natsuki." Mai stated quietly, her leg prone idly behind the other as her hands were folded against her front. Natsuki had a pleasurable face, that seemed to have shifted when Mai stood in that position, hands folded over so formerly.

It reminded her of Shizuru.

But she shook the thought from her mind as easily as it came, and re-fixated her gaze on her friend with a restive smile. "Same here, Mai."

"Would you maybe want to hang out again tomorrow?" She asked. "Mikoto doesn't have a problem being by herself, so we wouldn't have to drag her along anywhere."

Natsuki snorted. "I almost forgot about the little wretch." Mai pushed her shoulder slightly, and she chuckled. "Nonetheless, sure, I'm pretty sure I have the day off tomorrow, and like hell I'm going in if my boss decides to call me up last-minute."

Mai smiled pleasurably back at her friend, her hand touching the doorknob and twisting it open. "Alright. But Natsuki."

Natsuki frowned.

"Please do what I asked, and try to take better care of yourself." Mai's frown morphed into a sad smile.

She sighed and patted Mai on the shoulder. "Don't worry your prissy little head. I don't plan on starving myself anytime soon."

Mai giggled softly, and Natsuki brought her hand away before she flushed at the gesture. She took the knob from Mai and opened the door the rest of the way open. "Well, g'night."

"Goodnight, Natsuki. I'll see you tomorrow." Mai then turned her back, making her way out to the cold world, bunching up her heavy jacket.

Natsuki sighed as she felt the relief of the cold winds rush up against her. "Yeah, see you tomorrow." And she closed the door. In the purge of that moment she ran for the kitchen and pushed against the counter before bending down and pulling the cabinet doors open. Throwing plastic containers, she found the glass ash tray and stood back up, placing the tray onto the counter with a loud clatter. She took the lighter next to the coffee brewer, then the half-smoked joint, and lit it's end. She dropped the lighter and breathed in harshly, and the heated end scorched, it's body turning into ashes until it was gone, save for the small tip in Natsuki's mouth. She brought the small piece away, holding her breath with eyes closed, then released in a loud, drawn sigh, smoke bellowing from her lips and nostrils. She went into a sudden, violent coughing fit, then she leaned over the counter and sighed. Her nerves trembled and shook, and her throat croaked in dry desperation.

_Please, take better care of yourself._

"You take care of me. If you care so fucking much…" She coughed, and held her head in her arms.


	5. Haunted

_YES! After the past few days of a throbbing head and clogged nose, I've overcome my cold, and reclaimed my writer's touch (A good amount, at least). Happily, I present my readers with the fifth chapter of 'A Perfect Circle'._

* * *

**A Perfect Circle**

* * *

The shades are drawn and blacken the room, of which is infiltrated by the rising sun as its fiery beams shoot through each shade simultaneously. As the sun finds its way higher into the morning sky, it shrouds the clouds in a sea of interchanging colors of red. The withering trees brushed against one another in a chilled wind, sending hundreds of dying, crinkling leaves to the ground, and they touch the earth simultaneously, on every noticeable surface. Her rust-colored hair was ignited with the sun's rays to create a copper fire, and when the light abruptly struck her eyelids, they flinched and slowly fluttered open, revealing a dilated light amethyst. Mai groaned as her eyes recoiled from the raging beams, and she shut them again, slowly sitting upright, her body feeling heavy from an uneasy sleep. When she had the strength to open her eyes again, she watched the millions of small specks of dust frenzy about in the protruding sunlight before her bed. She turned her stiff neck and looked down at the opposite bed, Mikoto heavy in sleep as she snored softly, back turned to Mai. She smiled tiredly, but suddenly it was washed over into a grimace as a feeling of light-headedness and nausea struck her scathingly. She gripped the side of her scalp, thumbnail digging into her temple as a small groan loosened from her lips, and she flinched. When her eyes reopened, there were blurred and heavy, and a revisited her aggravated mind. With a drawn sigh, she let go of her head and dropped her legs over the side of the bed, drawing herself to the floor and stumbling when her knees slightly gave way. She tightened a grip to the edge of the bed and stood herself upright, slowly making her way out from the bedroom, a hand dragging itself across the plain walls. She stopped at the end of the hallway, looking down at the dreaded staircase before her. The ground below seemed far off. Precariously, she made her way slowly down the steps, gripping one side of the wall to steady herself as her headache throbbed in her mind and obscured her vision. When she reached the bottom, she let out a withdrawn sigh and leaned against the wall, her heavy eyes looking up from the floor to the door in front of her, where a small, quadrilateral window allowed pools of the morning light to show through. Her eyes collided with a direct beam, their amethyst burning in a glazed fire before she shut them.

'I had that dream again.' Her eyes opened again, slowly, looking down into the floor, her leg coiled around the other as she was held up by the wall, and her arms hung aimlessly against her body.

'It's been going on days that I've woken up in this kind of pain. Days that I feel like I've constantly been awake. Since the beginning of the end, the end of the Carnival, I've had this dream. Why are they screaming? Why do they bleed and cry, when I know they are alive? I've heard them, seen them live their lives and smile, but all I can dream about is their pain. All of my friends were once, maybe even for just a second, a bitter enemy of mine, and I can't ever forget that. But that doesn't mean I'll grudge against it. Yet all my mind lets me do is remember them inside the fire. My fire.'

She felt the numbing sensation in her legs began to fade, as her muscles went into spasm of awakening, and her skin bristled into goose bumps, a realization of cold air striking her. An arm automatically wrapped itself around her body, and she sighed against it, shifting so her back was against the wall. Her eyes, no longer as heavy but still a bit obscured, looked up at the door, gaze bent down and averted from sun's seething glare.

'Kagutsuchi. It's been a long time since I've said the name, yet it feels fresh in my mind. I remember your grace when you carried me over the world, the weak and humble under your wings while I commanded you, and you obeyed. It feels strange to me now, how weak I felt when I was with you. If I had you now, I would feel so strong. This condescending pain would be so much less, if I had your embodiment still in my heart. I remember that roar of honor you would give as you launched the flames from your heart when I told you to do so, out of your love for me. Out of the love I put into you. After the Carnival, after you died for me, you went away, and I accepted the fate that my role as a HiMe was over, and there was no purpose for you anymore. But sometimes, when I wake up each morning from this paining dream, I wish you were there to take my pain away. I miss my dragon.'

She felt dazed suddenly, but she shook her heavy head and lifted herself from the wall, making her way toward the kitchen. A pan lay cleansed in the sink, and she pulled it out, settling it down on the burner of the stove. She made her way to the fridge and pulled out a carton of eggs, closing the refrigerator door and setting the eggs next to the stove. One at a time, she pulled out an egg and cracked it open against the side of the pan, watching as it slumped into the center and sat, bubbling softly as the heat reached its white coat.

'Natsuki.' Mai thought in a raw tone to herself. 'When I saw you yesterday, and when I remember who you were back then, it scares me. I saw you trying to hide it, but I saw the desolation in your eyes. I felt the tension you gave off, as if everything I did was a burden to you, even though you laughed and smiled from time to time. When I asked you about Shizuru, I almost felt your mind flinch, and you looked hard at me, and answered me coldly. But then you talked to me as if all of that didn't matter. Just looking at you in that bare form of yours, your muscles, lack of complexion, your childhood washed away. I wonder if you considered the fact I would notice this much. But you were the first friend I had made ever since the day on that boat, aside from Tate, who I don't count as much anymore, since he's turned out to be my boyfriend. I could see it all too well, for whatever reason, you seem worse off.'

The timer on the stove chimed when its clock touched zero, and Mai lifted the finished eggs with a spatula onto a plate. She took a salt shaker by the sink and spread it across measurably, putting it down and walking over to the refrigerator, grabbing the wrapped plate of muffins on the top. She took one, placing the plate back, and put it on the plate next to the eggs. Her aggravating headache and lack of vision faded in her thoughts, and so she casually made her way back up the stairs, into the shower.

After about an hour, Mikoto grumbled in her sleep, turning onto her back before flicking her eyes open and staring at the ceiling. She blinked and turned her head to the side, seeing that Mai mad already made her bed. She sat up energetically and yawned aloud, jumping up from her bed and groggily made her way down the stairs in her long, black shirt. Rubbing a tied eye, a sudden whiff of cooked food caught into her nostrils, and she hungrily walked into the kitchen, stomach growling. On the counter was a plate of eggs and a blueberry muffin, with a small note next to it. Mikoto had taken a from the holster, about to stab into her prepared meal, until she glanced at the note out of the corner of her eye. She put down the fork and read what the note had to say.

_I will be with Natsuki most of the day. If you want to see her text me on my phone and I'll ask if she wants to come over. I hope you like your breakfast, make sure to heat it in the microwave before you eat it because it might be cold by the time you wake up._

_Love, Mai_

_--_

Mai walked her way to Natsuki's house in a short amount of time, and so she leaned against the side of the home, bundled inside her yellow jacket. She pulled out the chrome red cellphone from her pocket and flipped open the front, scrolling through a number of people before falling on Natsuki. She clicked the 'send' icon, waiting for the ringing to commence. Shortly after it had, and there was a wait before it was interrupted, followed by a shuffling against the speaker, and proceeding was a slight cough. "Yeah?" the voice answered gruffly.

"Morning sunshine." Mai teased.

The voice on the other side groaned. "Let me guess. Getting me ready for the adventurous day with you so early in the morning with you?

"Actually, I'm just outside your house, "Mai deadpanned. "so if you could hurry up and get yourself ready as soon as possible, that'd be great." A pleased smile crossed her face as she heard Natsuki sigh.

"Ugh, fuck me…" She said to herself, and a creaking noise was made, as if she were lifting herself from her bed mattress.

"Hm, that's not really my place to do such a thing, Natsuki." Mai retorted teasingly, yet innocently all the same.

"Oh-god damnit Tokiha!" With that, the other end was abruptly cut off. Mai only giggled as she closed the front of her phone and settled it into her pocket. A few moments passed, and Natsuki's door clicked open, and she revealed herself to the outside world in a pair of tattered jeans, a thin, black hoodie with the sleeves rolled, a pair of fingerless gloves, and black, hi-top converse. When she closed the door and locked it behind her, she turned back to glance at Mai, who looked away hurriedly, and snorted.

"So, to what reason I owe you the honor of this bullshit that I have to be awake at 8 in the damn morning?" Natsuki asked sarcastically, folding her hands into her pockets as she indolently walked away from her home and out to the street. Mai followed quickly after and followed up next to her.

"Well, I thought breakfast together would be nice. Don't you think?" Mai answered optimistically.

Natsuki nodded in a tired disinterest. "Sure, whatever you want is fine."

Mai was looking down, and after Natsuki answered in a familiar tone, she looked up to glance at the taller woman walking idly beside her.

'You may just be tired,' she thought. 'But you feel distant again today. As if nothing amuses you anymore. What happened to you, Natsuki? What has happened that's stripped you of the dignity that I once saw in you? Your dignified walk is the same,' She took note as she watched her friend walk; a lazy, but lethal take in her step. 'but it doesn't feel like you walk with a purpose anymore. I remember when I felt that purpose burning off of you. That's why I'm worried.'

Her gaze was hazy, but she blinked frantically when she was touched gently on the shoulder. She looked up, and Natsuki was glancing at her skeptically, with a raised eyebrow. Her face flushed, and it was obvious in the exposing cold, so she looked down at the ground again, watching her feet move, one in front of the other. After a moment, she felt Natsuki's look fall off of her, and quietly let go a sigh of relief. They both walked in silence for sometime, until Natsuki cleared her throat.

"So…" She started, the low voice a bit tinged with sleep. "How's Mikoto?"

Mai looked up again, and glanced over at Natsuki. "Oh, she's fine. She's matured quite a bit since the last time you've seen her, I bet."

"Really now?" Natsuki replied with an amused tone. "I wouldn't doubt she still bounces off the walls now and then, though."

"Ah, that'll never cease, I'm afraid." Mai sighed, looking up over her head as they grey clouds shrouded the illimitable sky, interchanging shapes and forms as they walked. She heard Natsuki's hands shuffling in her pockets, and there was a soft tap. She blinked and looked back down when she felt Natsuki stiffen beside her, but said nothing, and continued walking an amiable silence. The silence itself was becoming irritating for Mai, so she sighed softly, breath coiling in the frosty air and becoming visible before her eyes as a puff of smoke.

"There's a cozy diner up a little more, if that sounds good to you." She proposed, pointing ahead at the target that was currently out of view.

Natsuki shrugged. "I haven't really been out to eat much, so I don't know the whole 'what's a good place to eat and not' scene. A diner sounds good, though." She let out a loud and slow yawn, taking a hand from her pocket and wiping away and escaped tear. She heard Mai giggle discretely beside her and glanced over with a scowl.

"What's so funny?" She demanded.

Mai instantly looked up at Natsuki with a childish smile. "Nothing, Natsuki."

After a quick glare, Natsuki looked away, as did Mai, with a smile on her face. "Shouldn't you be doing this stuff with Tate, anyway? You know, the whole going out to eat thing."

"Well, he's busy today, and I thought it would be better to spend the weekend with an old friend." Mai replied, but to Natsuki, it sounded a bit barren. As if she wanted to deny the words she said. After a moment of silence, Natsuki glanced down at her friend, who was looking adjacent, at a plethora of colored leaves that were falling from the trees. Suddenly, Mai looked up at her, and then all she could muster was a forced smile, which made Natsuki smile awkwardly back, looking away hurriedly. After a bit more of walking through the quiet town, Mai told Natsuki they were at the diner, but all she did was nod in response, as she followed Mai slowly inside.

'Why do you have to look at me with your sad smile that still haunts me?' She thought, before shutting the small door behind her.

'The smile that will always continue to haunt me.'


	6. Façade

_Well, y'all under-achievers can thank Hallucinations-from-the-Womb for being the 25th reviewer of this story, thank to them you've got the sixth chapter of my story. And Grevlis, because he actually reviews ALL the time. Seriously people, it's like a sexual frustration. It NEEDS to be fulfilled or I'll just find a really bad habit that offers more motivation that will most likely be bad for my health. Other than yuri hentai. Uhm..._

_More reviews people. This is srs bsns._

* * *

**A Perfect Circle**

* * *

A content sigh escaped Mai's lips as she placed her fork down onto her now empty plate, reminisced with syrup, and pushed it back slightly. The small diner was fairly vacant, with a few families of three or four and a few elderly couples situated around the dining area. The lamps hung idly above the tables, and there was an unnatural heat coming from the kitchens behind the doors near the restrooms. Both waiters and waitresses alike walked hurriedly past Mai and Natsuki's table with trays above their heads. While the rust-haired woman preoccupied herself as she wrote out a check, the cobalt one watched through the long, frosted windows across from their table, chin rested firmly in the palm of her gloved hand that was supported by her elbow against the table, eyes soft in an eccentric gaze.

'It's been a while since I've done something like this.' Natsuki thought to herself, watching the trees bend against the wind outside. 'Act like I was normal in a peaceful world, that is. I'm just sitting here in a casual diner, with casual people, as if I'm casual myself. When, if I look around me, none of this would be possible if it weren't for me. More correctly, if it weren't for the girl in front of me. If we didn't use the power of the HiME, this world would be burning and dying. And hardly anyone knows what happened back then, or the fact that their entire existence was at stake, and against almost impossible odds of survival. That's why all these people can live so at ease, thinking everyday is just another day. But I can't help but imagine the wasteland this world would be if it weren't for use, for you.'

Natsuki's eyes gently averted from the window to Mai, who had the butt of the pen clicking against her lip as she stared down at the check in her hand.

'How do you do it, Mai? How do you walk with such an eased step, with such a calm breath, and with nothing from the past burdening you? You're the savior this world needed, the Queen of Hell, yet a goddess all the same. When I think about it, I'd be a total dick if I was you. I wouldn't care about a damn thing this world had to say to me, because I knew I saved the world. But then again, I know you, and I know you wouldn't allow yourself to stoop so low. You have a respectable morale about you, that you perceive yourself as just another one of the mortals when at one point you were immortal. Even when you had your HiME powers, you still limited yourself, and you hesitated to demonstrate them to the extreme. You felt weak when you had all the power the universe could offer you, but now, when you're so vulnerable and so limited, your smiles seem so much more passionate, and that luminescent aura that seems to pour off of you is lesser burdened than before. Perhaps you were the child that was heir to a throne she never wanted to take. But that I'll never know, because I'll never ask, because I'm too discrete to expose that lack of knowledge. I feel the same as I did when I had Duran, perhaps maybe stronger. Your true feelings are invisible, but you've always hid your distraught in the same shell, and when it's cracked and split open, you've snapped so many times, and you let all that distraught purge your sense of reason and explode through Kagutsuchi. Then you just fixed up the same broken shell and hid yourself away again. It was an endless cycle until the very and, and you fought so hard, and you didn't mind all of your friends becoming your enemy, as long as you got what you wanted. That wasn't the intension in the beginning, but I watched your innocence cringe and mutilate into the rage and raw power you exposed at the end. Maybe even I was scared at one point, but I'll never really know. Maybe I'll-'

"Natsuki?" Natsuki's barrier of thought was distinguished when Mai prodded for her attention when she realized the woman was staring at her. After a few quick blinks, Natsuki recollected herself and looked back at Mai, who was smiling faintly with the tinge of a blush.

'Fuck, I was staring…' Natsuki coughed and looked away hurriedly, a hardened scowl on her face. She heard Mai giggle, then she sighed, expression fading as she let her head fall out of her palm and hang. "You can't blame me. You forced me out of my home at 8 in the morning; I'm gonna be a little disoriented."

"I'm not exactly sure if disoriented is the word." Mai considered, looking up and nodding softly as the waitress took her check and walked away after. "Aloof, maybe?" She finished, looking back down with a smile.

Natsuki snorted. "Tcsh, I'm like that everyday. And I don't mind, either." She lifted her head, moving a strand of her hair behind her ear and placing her chin into her palm again.

"I suppose so." Mai replied, slipping on her thick jacket that hung over her chair, standing up slowly. "Shall we leave?"

"Sure." Natsuki stood tiredly from her own chair, grabbing her thin hoodie and shrugged it on. She made her away past the breakfast bar and glided her way past other people, holding open the door for Mai, who glanced a smile as she walked out. Natsuki followed, and she walked beside Mai, hands folded in her pockets as before.

"How'd you like breakfast?" Mai asked quietly, possibly a bit mellow from her own meal.

Natsuki shrugged her shoulders, gazing a bit to the side. "It was pretty good. I haven't had a decently cooked meal in a while."

"You should have called me. I would have came over right away to cook for you, naturally." Mai stated lightly.

"I'm too proud to ask that kind of thing. I'm surprised your 'Tokiha senses' didn't feel my distress that I didn't have a girl to cook for me." Natsuki replied dryly and looked forward, gaze averted a bit downward at the cracks and splits on the cold sidewalk.

Mai giggled lightly at the remark, then held her hands behind her back as she walked beside Natsuki, hair and face hid away slightly by the hood of her jacket. Natsuki walked with her gaze down on the sidewalk, then glanced sideways, her head slowly turning up warily as she looked down at her friend beside her.

"In any case," Mai started and glanced over at Natsuki, who quickly looked away, forcing back the heat of embarrassment. "I'd be happy to come over and cook for if you wanted. Mikoto's been less clingy lately, so I've been able to make more time for myself."

"Does that make you a little sad on the inside?" Natsuki teased, absently grabbing her black hood and slipping it over her head as well.

"I miss how she used to be completely dependent on me sometimes, but I'm more than glad that she's able to be independent and on her own." Mai replied softly, listening intently to the audibility of a leaf as it crackled underneath her shoe. The cold air was very quiet. Natsuki didn't reply afterward, so they walked in silence for some time. Mai grew tired of listening to their feet on the sidewalk, so she focused her hearing on Natsuki's breathing beside her. It was very light and controlled, but drawn out, and when she glanced over, small puffs of warm breath lingered and disappeared when her lips parted periodically. Her eyes were beguilingly demonstrated, a dark cerulean than their usually dark emerald, deceived by the white light of the skies and the shadows of her hood. Mai's gaze was prolonged as she fell into thought, walking absently.

'It's a bit weird to me that neither of us have asked why we chose to disregard each other after the Carnival. A coincidence, maybe, but there's little chance in that. I've had every opportunity to spend some of my free time with you, but I took to procrastinating and then it was pushed from my mind completely. I don't know what your reasons are, then again, it could simply be because you are you. You are the approached, and you never approach yourself, because you don't feel as though you have a reason to initiate. Or something like that, at least. When I look at you now, your eyes are dark, and there's a glass wall that hardens your frenzy of emotional turbulence. And I can break the barriers you surround yourself with, because I can see through glass. Your expressions are like an expensive glass vase; if they lose their guard and fall, they shatter and expose their beautiful contents that sprawls out violently. You know that if you expose yourself, if you let anyone invade your inner self, you'll shatter and become violent. And that's why you make yourself always look so intense and in such premonition, because you don't want to masquerade in that kind of rage again.'

In the back of her mind she heard Natsuki shift, and she blinked out of her trance and looked down at her feet, feeling Natsuki look at her, then turn back a moment later. She sighed softly, breath dancing in a cloud of heat and dissipating just as fast.

'It's a shame that you're the only one like that, while the rest of us can live more peacefully with ourselves. What I've done in the past cannot be forgotten so I've chose to accept it bitterly, but you shroud yourself with such self-hate and malignity, in pain of regrets and remorse for the things you've done in the past, that maybe you believe you could have done differently. Though it's not my place to tell you how to feel, I wonder if you'd smile just a little more if you didn't overlook those things so profoundly. If you ever accepted the fate that was handed to you. When I realized I was given the power of the HiME, I hated it, I seethed over it, I cried and I screamed over it, and I just wanted to quicken my own end as the days went by. But there a day that I walked the line of acceptance or insanity, and it was natural for me to realize that I couldn't leave this earth behind for such a selfish reason; I was going to die for a purpose if nothing else. If there were things I could have done, I've disregarded them. But you chastise yourself in disdain for the fact that you didn't demonstrate infallibility. When I look at you right now and the way you act, it seems as though you're trying to make up for your mistakes. But I wonder if someone was able to see past your contravene façade, they'd see you screaming at the world for all it's unreasonable contempt toward you. Whenever I was caught in battle, I would watch you over the flames, and I saw your imperfect self under the fear and anxiety of your fallen façade.'

"Hey," Mai jumped slightly and her eyes flinched, then she looked up at Natsuki, who had a mellow expression as she looked at her with dark, jaded eyes. "I was thinking, about going over to your place. Y'know…I think I owe the wild little child a visit after ignoring the poor kid for so long."

Mai watched, then let go a gradually brightening smile. "That sounds great. She was probably going to call me to ask you…" Mai suddenly stopped in her sentence, then instantly went for her jacket pocket. "Crap, I turned off my phone in the restaurant." She pulled it from her pocket and held down the power button. A soft ping, send the screen blinked on. Another ping was heard and a small message alert popped up.

Mai sighed. "She sent me a text while we were eating…" While she opened it, she heard Natsuki snicker audibly and turned her face with an accusing look. "What are you laughing at?" She asked demandingly.

"Mikoto's got a phone now? I'm surprised she hasn't eaten it yet." Natsuki laughed harmlessly and let her hood fall back, releasing the full color of her emerald eyes and dark hair. Mai just let a smile set and lazily looked back to her phone. Mikoto had left the message, '_BRING NATSUKI HOME!! '_. Mai laughed out loud and flipped the phone closed, sliding it back into her pocket.

"Well, even if you wanted to or not, you're coming over my house for the rest of the day. Mikoto's orders."

Natsuki blinked momentarily, then snorted and laughed again, hands folded casually into her sweatshirt pockets as she walked slightly behind Mai, who began walking with a smile. Natsuki trailed slightly, looking down at the cold ground as she walked. When she looked up, her eyes were dim, and they brightened as she was instantaneously mesmerized by how the afternoon sun perfected the bleeding gold outline along Mai's hair, that prolonged down each bleeding red strand, so elite and angelic, but then she flinched her eyes shut and sighed quietly, a breath of smoke curled through her lips into the crisp air, and her eyes retreated to the ground once more.

'I remember the heat, the blood, the sun and the fire, and then I always, always, remember you.'

Natsuki just smiled hollowly.


	7. White Knuckles

_A/N: I apologize for the extremely long delay. I've had to deal with a lot of family matters, as well as some stress and school issues as well. But hopefully the exciting (maybe) turn in this chapter will satisfy my hungry readers. Enjoy chapter 7~_

**A Perfect Circle**

* * *

_Don't do this to me._

One more moment.

_Don't make me do this to you. Not me, please._

Just one more peaceful moment.

_Please, don't. Don't go._

I have to slip away.

_Don't leave me to die, not alone. I'll be evil if I'm alone. Please._

I have to cut away.

_I don't want to be evil, I don't want to be alone. Please don't make me do this._

Just one more moment.

_Please, please. Please!_

I Have to slip away and settle this.

_No, no! Please!_

I'm sorry.

_NO!_

Just give me one more, medicated, peaceful moment.

* * *

"Mai, how long has she been playing this?" Natsuki asked groggily, lolled into the wine red, velvet couch.

"Oh, about a couple weeks?" Mai blatantly responded, dully watching fast paced and colorful streams of light and buttons across the television screen. Mikoto herself stood in front of them, body situated like that of statue with only muscles of the forearms and hands shifting, in order for her fingers to touch the notes in time. Bright yellow eyes scanned intensely, even her firm face fixated in a constant expression.

Natsuki raised an eyebrow. "Mikoto, what's your high score?" She asked a bit condescendingly, as if expecting a certain answer. There was a moderate silence after her question, and she grunted in her throat in a bit of annoyance.

"…Through the Fire and the Flames…a little more over 1 million…expert…" Mikoto's voice monotone, eyes still focused on the screen.

"Jesus…" Natsuki retorted, palm collided with her forehead before she let it slide idly downward. "I'd say you need to get out more, but I'm not one to talk. Still, is that necessary?"

"There's no need to bug her about it," Mai chided playfully whilst looking over to Natsuki. "she'll only get bored of it in a month and stop playing."

Natsuki saw the quick wrinkle on Mikoto's nose, and smiled wolfishly. "Probably true." She then let her mind wander aimlessly, taking into consideration the drastic differences in looks that Mikoto bore, who of which was dressed in a moderately tight pear of denim jeans, with a black, loosened tee and a rainbow, studded belt. Her muscular, matured build was also apparent, but Natsuki quickly discarded this piece of information. Instead, her dull eyes fell over the room around them. It was painted a warm, light gold color, a bit more vibrant than the old dorm rooms she was used to seeing. A few pictures hung scant across the walls, most pictures of Mai and Mikoto as they held each other, the feral one usually with some kind of snack while Mai held her around the waist with a smile. Natsuki could feel a wry smile pull at the corners of her lips, and she looked more, then her eyes fell over one picture, and for a split second she felt a void in the pit of her stomach. It was a picture of Mai, not with Mikoto, but with a man who was dark of face. His arms her around her waist, and she looked at the other pictures surrounding the one and looked back at it. Something was there, and even though Natsuki couldn't designate it, the feeling of melancholy washed over her when her eyes fell on that picture.

"Tate."

"Did you say something, Natsuki?"

Startled, Natsuki whirled herself around and looked at Mai, who in turn looked at her, a furtive worry in her dark, amethyst eyes. Then Natsuki felt her face cringe in a distortion of passion while she looked through the surface of her eyes. She observed a hollow numbness under that façade of violet.

"I'm fine." She spat before Mai began to part her lips.

"That's not what I asked. I asked if you said something." Mai answered, concern apparent in her quiet voice. "Are you sure you're alright-"

"Oh, no, I didn't say anything. And yeah, I'm fine." Natsuki answered abruptly, a feign of wanton aggravation over her face while she rubbed her temples. "Damn headache from waking up so early, thanks to you." She exclaimed on the last word, and Mai couldn't help but smile.

"I guess it's grown more as a physical need than a habit for you to be a vegetable." She giggled tersely, making Natsuki snort.

"Hey, maybe if it wasn't you, I wouldn't have such a headache." She smirked as Mai pouted and just sat back against the couch, looking at Mikoto. Said ex-Hime pulled off the final riff that ended her current song, quickly moving through a series of upcoming screens before pulling the strap over her body, shirt catching slightly, then she set it down next to the game console, picked up the remote on the top of the television and threw it at Mai, who caught it frantically. "All yours." She stated cheerily, then looked at Natsuki. "So what's up?" She asked, cheery as ever, Natsuki thought.

"Oh, nothing too much." She lied. Not that anyone would notice. "Spending time with Midori that probably is costing me issues with my health."

"I wouldn't doubt that too much time with Midori would be a bad thing." Mai answered lightly, flicking through numerous channels on the television.

Mikoto snorted in what seemed like a laugh, then began to casually make way into the kitchen. "Natsuki, you want anything to drink?" She called, a call of which echoed unimportantly through Natsuki's ears as her eyes were hardened on the picture of Mai and Tate, neck bent against the back of the couch lazily.

'I know that smile.' She mused in her own ill-defined thoughts. 'That smile you used to reassure to your friends when they asked if you were alright. That smile you used to make us all feel safe when you had no one and nothing to comfort you. The smile I saw, when your tears were ripping at your eyes, and you smiled to fight against it desperately. A smile you used to lie, to oppress your hate, to pretend the pain and the sorrow wasn't there, because it was the only smile you knew. Mai. Are you still in pain?'

"Deaf Hime." Mikoto deadpanned, and Natsuki jerked her head upright, looking her directly in the eyes. She could feel Mai's eyes also on her, an expression of perplexity that she discarded while facing Mikoto, who had a slight wrinkle up against her nose in agitation.

"Eh, nah, I'm good." She answered, and proved sufficient to the girl as her body disappeared behind the wall of the kitchen. Natsuki sighed audibly and let her body sink into the couch, wishing that the couch was an endless void that would suffice to medicate the waves of burning sensation over her mind. Damn headache. She groaned.

"You know, it's weird." She heard Mai begin, but didn't turn or make any sudden gestures, only close her heavy eyes to try and force the pain away. "But I had a racking headache earlier too, when I woke up." Her eyes lingered on Natsuki for a moment, gazing through her white skin, each designated pore, then averted her eyes without a blink to her lap before her, that she placed her cold hands on. "Nightmare."

Natsuki wrinkled an eyebrow and cocked an eye open at Mai. "Nightmare, huh." She asked, that was warily a statement more than anything.

Mai nodded. "I've had it more than once; been having it for over a week, a nice throbbing headache every morning." Mai sighed, then bent her neck back against the couch, eyes closed with her face up to the ceiling. Natsuki opened both eyes now, precariously, and she looked over at Mai, looking over carefully the dark sanguine roots that connected her flawless strands of vibrant mahogany hair to her milky skin. She took in the natural curl of her eyebrows, in their lighter shade of fire, then her eyes traced over the slant of her nose, down to her gently parted lips as calm, circulated breaths emitted from them; they were a melted shade of pink, smooth, fragile, also flawless. And Natsuki, in the bellows of her wolven mind, felt a hunger. Immediately she brought her gaze away and looked down into her own lap when Mai opened her eyes to the ceiling, then drooped her head sideways at her, and smiled. "The past is a bitch, right?"

"Amen to that." Natsuki replied dully, eyes closed again with her arms crossed over her chest. She heard Mai laugh in that mesmerizing overture, that she spoke without having to try, that eased the tension in Natsuki's body. She let her lips part to let go a breath, and as if on cue, Mikoto walked in, a glass bottle of milk in hand. She took the glass to her lips and gulped audibly, bringing it down to her side now left with half a glass full, and smiled with a milk-induced moustache. "'Sup, guys?" She asked nonchalantly.

Both Natsuki and Mai shrugged, the latter with a gentle a smile on her face. Natsuki's eyes wandered around the room, feeling as though a sense of purpose was fading. What reason did she have for staying here? Her gaze furtively motioned to Mai beside her, who was in conversation with Mikoto, drowned out of her thoughts from the beginning. Again, she felt a persistent twitch in her left eyelid, and she shut her eyes to ignore the creeping urge. She stood, and caught all attention from the room.

"Hey, Mai," Natsuki began, opening her eyes after the sudden spasm left her. "Sorry, but I gotta go home, deal with this headache with a nice nap."

"You want any aspirin?" Mai replied, standing with Natuski, and hesitated, but then placed a hand against her forehead, the palm feeling warm. "I hope it's not a foreboding cold."

Natsuki resisted the flush that was threatening to heat her face as she felt the softness of Mai's hand against her head. "Don't worry about it," she protested. "Sleep's the best medication."

After a moment of Natsuki's care-free smile, Mai could only smile back, and draw her hand away, leaving Natsuki's head bare and cold again. A surge of pain rushed over her that she ignored visibly. "Alright then." Mai concluded, luring herself closer to the door, of which Natsuki and Mikoto followed. Mai took the knob in her hand and eased it open, turning her head at the woman. "Call me if you need anything, ne?" She said with a smile.

There. Natsuki held the sudden discomfort in her throat with persistency like a vice. The smile of a lie. As if everything was alright.

She released her breath audibly, that attained her intrigued looks that she ignored. "And, you the same. In case you need anything. Alright?" Natsuki added, looking at Mai. Through her, for any sense of reason behind the smile of the hollow.

Mai nodded, this time, a warm smile severed the last, and Natsuki nodded just as she walked past the door frame, lending a small wave behind, to the frantically waving Mikoto. She heard the door shut behind her, and she froze there, and a draining breath left her as she hung her head down. The anxiety once grappling her heart released her and spared her. Slowly, she made her way against the cold that had taken her, hunched her shoulders barely whilst adapting to the bitter rawness of the wind. There she traveled with hands in her pockets, traveling in no particular direction to any designated destination. Her un-phased, detached emerald eyes followed the ground as she took each step, a blur of concrete and frozen rain. Strands of darkened sapphire hair fell against her face, shoulders hunched slightly as her lean frame traveled down the barren streets. A scream emitted in the distance, and her head jerked rapidly, eyes widening, dilating, as she heard the screams again. Instantly, her body forcibly pushed her forward, and she ran wildly down the street, launching herself out of the way of hindering objects and frequently jumping over several. Her sneakers slid against the wet concrete as she halted herself before a long, narrow and darkened alley, chest bounding up and down as her eyes slit into thin irises, looking down the pathway to a scene of four large men in dark clothing, and in the midst of their shadows a struggling woman who was writhing underneath their powerful grips. She screamed again, a piercing cry, and Natsuki, in the momentum of her rage did not feel her upper lip wrinkle as a growl emitted itself from her throat, her hands bound up in a fist of white knuckles and an infuriated wrinkle on her brow, eyes angry and the picture of enflamed diamonds, flickering. One man, taller than the others, glided his thick tongue along the woman's neck in a callous smirk, who shrieked in paranoia, and the others laughed haughtily, a cold, merciless bite of their tongues. Their eyes glowed an ugly yellow in the darkness, like that of hungry wild animals. The tall one felt a hand grip his shoulder frenetically, and he grimaced and turned.

"What." He ordered sharply. The second man had no time to answer as he pointed toward the light, body visibly shaking, and by this time the others had turned, and their mouths were agape, as they seemed to begin hysterically crawling over each other in a fight to escape a phantasmal threat. The tall one wrinkled his brow and faced the direction that the others were looking, and before he distributed a suited reaction his face was clasped in a powerful hand that forced itself upon him, a second hand gripped around his throat, a shoe placed itself against his chest, and the hand against his face lashed out away from him, carrying flesh, bone and a display of projectile blood within it's wrathful slash.

* * *

_I'll do it, for you._

Don't fret, my dear.

_I'll do it because you wanted this._

Go back to sleep.

_I'll do it because I promised I would always make you happy._

Lay your head back down, child.

_I'll do this to prove I never lied._

Please stay with me, so safe and ignorant.

_I hope this will protect you from the voices._

Such a nice child.

_I hope this will protect you from your demons._

Don't fret, my precious.

_I promise not to cry._

Lay your head down.

_I promise this, only for you. I promise to do this all for you._

Go back to sleep.

_Now, go to sleep._

Go back to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums.


	8. Breakdown

_A/N: And so, decided to poste the eigth chapter a bit early this time. Hope you all enjoy~. Bit angsty in this one, mind you, though, hence the genre..._

_Yes, onward to chapter eight._

**A Perfect Circle**

* * *

A thick, sanguine liquid formed in a pool from under an unobtrusive form, and poured in corresponding motion down a slick crack of concrete with drenching ice rain. Heavy bullets of rain plummeted obliquely in a fusion with small ice crystals, denying the earth any warmth or comfort. Small hitched, distressing breaths let out from the laying figure's lips, a cappella with a harsh thunderclap overhead as light reigned the sky for a brief moment, to illuminate the blackened clouds. The darkness of the enclosed back street was briefly lifted, and in its light revealed, in a penetrating moment, the vision of Natsuki inside a circle of blood, tainted sapphire hair sprawled over her face with body curled pitiably, clothes torn, limbs bent by the wrath of hands and metal. Surrounded was carnage of the men, their bodies visibly mangled, pools of blood invading those of the others, shadows cast over the unimaginable states of their beaten faces. Broken wood planks, shards of glass messed in crimson and bent, metal pipes lay castoff, fouled by violence and Natsuki's blood. But just as rapidly as it had appeared the giving of light returned to darkness, and her body lay lifeless, breathing being the only prevalence allowing her a form of life.

"…Mai…" Was the only word that had writhed itself from her lips, weakly, before she fell into darkness for hours to come.

* * *

"…Tate?" Mai breathed.

"Hmm?"

The dirtied blonde looked up from his previous focus on Mai's neck, and looked her indolently in the eyes. Herself in turn, looked at him with a hollow gaze, empty emotions, nothing if but a bit of disappointment hidden behind them. She lay below the young man that knelt above her on the velvet couch, large hands against her shoulders as her own hands pressed forcibly against his chest.

"Don't you want to… talk?" She said, the final word spoken almost furtively.

Tate answered with a cock of his eyebrow. "What do you mean?" He automatically bent down and kissed another portion of Mai's neck, who bent it willingly, and then came back up. "We talk all the time, Mai."

"Well.." She continued, and tried to force her eyes not to wander. "I guess it's just that, this is all we seem to do. We never talk like we used to. Don't you remember? That year ago…" An intangible pain ached her insides for a moment, then she ignored it. "when you would always talk to me, even if it seemed like I hated you, and wanted nothing to do with you. That kind of talking?" Her words were surfaced with an innuendo of sadness, that Tate appeared to ignore or undermine, because he only smirked and glided his rough mouth over her neck slowly once again.

"Sorry," he whispered in breaths that fell against Mai's skin. "I guess I said a lot of that because you were so far away. I have you, so close, just like this." He then incremented pressure on Mai's shoulders, and she wrought at her bottom lip with her teeth slightly. "So I figured I didn't have to try as hard." A chuckle brought breath outward and onto Mai's skin again, while he kissed interminably at her collar bone. She sighed in discomfort, eyes looking, searching through her ceiling, as if a light would purge her discomfort, and make Tate more aware, and would purge her tension. But no light came, and Tate had migrated his hands down along her waist and upon her thighs, sliding them passively up and down, going for the small bite against her skin.

Mai's breath hitched slightly, and her eyes winced shut, and her hands forced him away by his chest. He replaced his look of deliriousness with one of confusion and just stared at Mai unknowingly. She looked up at him, and the surfacing of melancholy quickly changed into a glower of anger. "I don't want to do this today, Tate…" She looked down at her own lap.

Tate felt his eyebrows rise in his surprise. "What? Hey, what's up with you tod-" He was abruptly cut off by Mai's sudden force as she pushed upward forcefully, causing him to stumble on his feet to the floor, while she stood up and walked firmly across the room, then turning and facing him with eyes that exposed an inner frustration.

"You always want to have sex." She said sharply, looking him directly in the eyes. And she saw when his look of confusion visibly morphed to a stricken gaze. "That's all that it's been about lately. You have no motivation to do anything else, even when I try to pry you out of my damn pants." A wrinkle morphed in the snare of her brow and nose. Tate returned the glare, and his hand formed a fist, irritated.

"Listen, Mai." He started, a sharpness in his loud voice that made one of her eyes flinch. "I thought sex was a good thing between two people that loved each other. I'm sorry that I never saw it as a bad thing like you did. But that's no reason to get pissed at me for something you feel uncomfortable doing."

"I don't feel uncomfortable doing it." She replied, and he met his sharp tone, and even anger reminisced inside it. "But I don't want to do it all of the time. You shouldn't either. I want to do other things with you, things that can help us learn more about each other, that can make us both happy.." She trailed off, and her eyes averted to the floor, and she could feel Tate's seething glare on her

"Well…" He began silently, also looking to the floor for a kind of sanctimony for answers. "I'm sorry. I didn't know it bothered you." He then looked back up, and Mai did the same, and they both looked at each other, coldly, unsociably, the effect of one was to rob the other of their reassurance, and of their conception that they were the more reasonable one. Then the thickening air of tension evaporated by Mai's phone as it rumbled audibly and rang against the counter. Mai jerked her head sideways, made a sidelong glance back at Tate, and cautiously made her way toward the counter and picked up the phone, looking at it's front. "Mikoto…" She worded the name that appeared, and flipped open her phone and placed it against her ear. "Mikoto?"

There was crumbled static amidst a distant sound of rainfall, then Mai heard hard gasps of a shaken voice on the other end.

"_M-__Mai__ …" _Mikoto trembled, breathing crackled against the speaker in small fits of hysteria.

"Mikoto? Mikoto, what's wrong?" Mai asked frenetically, phone pressed closer against her ear in an oblivious state of worry.

"_I-I…" _She choked. _"I…Natsuki… Natsuki's hurt, s-she's covered in blood..and.. She's breathing…" _At this point, Mai's face was a distortion of shock and horror, the phone painfully ridden against her ear, taking in every word beyond the heavy crackling. _"She can't move… I-I can't wake her up, she won't wake up… God, Mai…" _Mikoto's voice became ravaged by overwhelming sobs and hitches of breath.

"Mikoto…" Mai began, feebly. "Mikoto, relax. Where are you?"

"_Ngh…hold on…" _There was a silence on the other line for a few agonizing moments that Mai had no idea of the condition Natsuki was in. Finally, Mikoto's voice returned. _"We're in a back street… directly across from Hirigawa Boulevard."_

"Alright. Don't move. Call an ambulance and I'll be right there. Don't leave her alone for a _second_, Mikoto."

"_I - I know. I won't. P-please get here quick Mai."_

Mai clasped closed the phone and shoved it into her pocket, and excitedly, she jogged around the room, messily pulling on a pair of shoes, then leaped from that spot to the back of the lounge chair to grasp her coat and fling it over herself. In her paranoia she had forgotten the argument between Tate and herself, and the presence of the man altogether, as she grabbed at a pair of keys and forcibly grabbed at the door, flung it open, and sped out.

"Mai, what the-" And again, he was caught intervened by the slamming of the door, and the disappearance of Mai before him. There was a malevolent silence, before wrath overcame him, and he forcefully kicked a light wooden chair in a fit of rage, sending it to the ground loudly, in a violent animation of his body.

* * *

Rain beat heavily down upon Mai's small, tan sedan as she drove, disheveled and distraught through the slick waters against her tires. Her eyes were ignorant of anything but the direction in which she was pulled to by a prodigious force, that disabled her ability to take in the wandering pedestrians, or the red lights, or the other vehicles on the road, or the honking and screaming against her on the outside. She had been only granted the ability to know where Hirigawa Boulevard was, and to go there as fast as humanly and inhumanly possible. Small whacks of sharp ice crystals struck the windshield and bounced off in the same rapid motion, hundreds striking at a time as to coat the sky with a blanket of raw cold. The tires sneered dangerously against the ground, and the car swerved persistently, and Mai drove on with an impending focus that ceased to stop her from going onward, fists clasped desperately to the stirring wheel, foot absently pressing harder against the gas pedal. Faintly, behind the wall of ice rain, she saw the object of something green, and could decipher the word "hirigawa" in white. Instantly, the car slid through mud, slosh and ice before it came to a stop, nor did Mai bother to stop the engine as she forced the door open and stepped out, grabbing for balance as her feet slid against the uncertain ice. She picked herself up and walked hurriedly across the weathered ground, leaving her car situated open and running, a distortion of fear as well as anger stimulating in the corners of her mind that battled with the slight embodiments of reassurance. Her eyes were wide with alertness, and only then did she finally realize the mumbles of humans, and the glaring flashes of red sirens around her. She made her way further, passing through bodies she didn't care to recognize as policemen that appeared through the becoming fog, and then she stopped, all movement, any reminiscent of thoughts in the mind, because all that was there that fully enveloped all parts of her was the sight of Natsuki being cautiously hauled upon a white stretcher that she instantly stained with her continuously draining blood.

Her face was dark, a malignity without emerald eyes to cradle it in encouraging beauty. For now, it was a epitome of a mighty beating, a mere representation of pain, no beauty, and ugly brutality. The eyes themselves were beaten shut, to a point where it brought too much pain to open them. The bottom lip was swollen, and blood possessed every figment of her body, inevitable to the eye no matter were someone looked. Clothing was ruthlessly torn, bruises and scars decorated her body. The severed image disappeared when Natsuki's body was brought into the back of an ambulance vehicle by two men at each end, hulling her in slowly, as if her body would shatter to the slightest sharp movement. In the moment, Mai's body ceased to hold her in place, unemotional, and the inner emotive that built an awesome wrath inside of her came forth and out, and the only thing that had a power to stop Mai from lunging forward and gripping the slowly dying body was Mikoto's powerful grip, as she pit herself in between the ambulance and Mai.

She sobbed against the older woman's chest, all inner strength used to hold the other back, in a moment where heart ravaged mind, corroded it in a wasteland where emotions overwhelmed any aspect of logic like a flood. A silence preceded a sudden outbursts of heart aching sobs and wails. Heavy, wet tears poured out willingly from Mai's eyes, against her cheeks, falling on the taste buds of her tongue into her mouth, tasting bitter and only enforcing the cry. Her body soon gave in to calming itself against Mikoto's stronghold, and she brought arms around the feral girl and squeezed her for a desired consolation. Mai wailed Natsuki's name, over and over, in a perpetual mantra. A calling that had no purpose but what was in Mai's heart to have been called, and she gave into it without demur. She called the name through sobs, racking, hysteric breathing, the two in each other's arms, to try and abate the sorrow and the pain that the imagery of Natsuki's beaten body brought over them, like a plague.


	9. Indestructible

_Hey, it's finally here! Chapter nine of a Perfect Circle. I'm not sure how to feel about it yet, so I'll leave the judgment up to my readers. Let me know what you think in some reviews, and enjoy._

**A Perfect Circle**

**

* * *

  
**

A heartbeat. Pumping against a surface, fluently, darkness surrounding. Beating rhythmically, to a drum, an unconditional warmness evaporating what was left of ice and raw. Vision slowly proceeded blackness, blurred and obstructed, but the light was forceful in its rupture, and sensations of pale green, with overwhelming white that quickly dissipated to green and formations of purple again. The pumping sensation droned, absently in the subconscious while new forms of shape began to place themselves in Natsuki's eyes. The darkness subsided, and a wave of chastising pain struck her head quickly , and left. It brought a redness to her eyesight, that throbbed heatedly as blood pumps in the veins, and then slowly faded simultaneously with the sharp pain. Natsuki skeptically began to feel her surroundings. The feeling was transparent, although Natsuki's mind hollowly discarded this and began to take in the world surrounding her. Night yawned against her. Tall, veiling pine was shadowed by the dark that had unknowingly overcame the sun. She pushed her body upward slowly and then turned her head side to side, painfully, for random movements appeared to bring sharp pains into her limbs. Then she suddenly stopped drearily and took in the silence, and everything began to perturb her. How the sense to feel was not numb only when it felt pain, but the damp grass below her, the unquestionable air, the shiver of the wind was intangible. She minded the oncoming loneliness. It was neither cold nor hot.

Then there was hunger. What she did feel was an aware want to feed her unknown hunger, unknown until recently, when the senses were revitalized. She lunged forward so that her body was lifted upward, and flinched in the process, awaiting yet another strike of pain. But mysteriously, the action did not allow pain to come, so Natsuki opened her eyes and walked forward. Her surroundings seemed ominous, since she could not see beyond the darkness of the thickening trees on each side. She could not hear, nor taste, nor smell, if anything but the presence of silence. She continued, and before her there was a long, immeasurable path guided by the pines. The darkness around her was unnatural; there were no stars, and no luminary beams cast from the moon. Clouds could not be seen through the blackness. She began to toil as an intangible fatigue came over her body. Her vision became slurred again by even more darkness, that of closing her eyes, and then suddenly she could hear faint, moist sounds beneath her feet. The slight squishes became loud and apparent, as if stepping through marshes.

A fire erupted calmly in the distance. Natsuki stopped. Blood trailed the bottom of her bare feet. She took one step forward, and the sound of moist swampground reacted. The naked earth was violated by blood, drowned in it, illuminated by the flame. Another harsh jab of pain struck her against the collar bone and the shoulder, accumulating the nausea from the sight of endless blood. Her eyes averted upward, weakened and throbbing; a figure pronounced itself in front of the flames. It held a hand out to Natsuki, and belligerently did she try to run, only to fall, and her naked knees and hands fell into the blood. Strands of her hair draggled down against the red, the black red.

Then she found herself sinking.

In the subconscious, the heart throbbed, beating against the walls of her mind like an angry drum. Her hands and knees had sunk into the swallowing earth, and the parasitism was intoxicating as strings of blood fell into spasms and drawled against her skin, gripping the flesh and dragging it down. She breathed and gasped harshly as her upper body became conquered and devoured by the blood. Her whitened hand reached out , and her opposite shoulder thrust in order to try and pull the arm free, forcing her body outward, toward the mysterious figure, who still protruded a hand to the slowly dying Natsuki. Then Natsuki could feel the heartbeat begin to calm, as the flames beyond fall to darkness, and her eyes were slowly covered by red, and instead of perpetually warring for life she succumbed to her entire body being enveloped.

---

"Natsuki…"

A groan escaped her throat and bubbled up through her open mouth. Natsuki slunk her head to the side, then groggily, her slightly purple eyelids opened and allowed her a blurred vision of Mai sitting beside her. She felt an unconditional warmness and looked down, to weakly see that her hand was cradled into Mai's. A shadow moved itself above her, and Mikoto barely came into view from the top of her eye, looking down at her anxiously. Her sight then refocused itself, and the blur disappeared from her vision. The surrounding area was white, there was a hovering smell of adhesive and latex, and various parts of her body throbbed, as did she also feel her hand being warmed by Mai's palms and her body against a soft cushioning.

"Natsuki?" Mai asked softly again, and she bent her head down more in order to attract Natsuki's attention. Natsuki looked off, where the sink was, and where there were various tools and miscellaneous items. Then her mind reacted to the stimulate of her name being called and moved her eyes to Mai, who instantly offered a wide, gentle smile. Mikoto had a hand against Mai's shoulder and also smiled genuinely behind her back. Natsuki had to focus and consider, then she crookedly smiled, closing her eyes temporarily, for the beating upon them made it a task to keep them open.

"How are you feeling, Natsuki?" Mai questioned automatically, but also softly, because the ringing in Natsuki's ears was further rattled by the harsh vibrations of sound. She moved her head so that her eyes faced the white ceiling, then she slowly opened them, a strong gleam of the ceiling light off to the left, so she turned her head opposite the menacing gleam.

"I'm…" She allowed her burning throat to let escape whispers through her dry mouth. "…feel like a fucking wreck…" The words were quickly pursued by a harsh cough that soured the taste in her mouth. After the sudden fit, she turned to Mai, who held out a small cup to her. She settled her head higher against the pillow elevating her head and opened her mouth, allowing Mai to gently guide the liquid into her mouth. Mai brought the cup away, and Natsuki gulped, then breathed slowly and sunk her down downward. "Thank you…" She breathed.

Mai smiled genuinely. "Youko," The mahogany woman turned her head and called toward the concealed area of the white room. Youko appeared hurriedly from behind the curtain, clothed in a long laboratory coat and latex gloves. When she caught the sight of Natsuki's open eyes, she slowed her pace whilst approaching and smiled.

"Well, about time you're awake." She deadpanned, taking a secondary seat by Mai, in front of Natsuki, who in turn smirked with the best of her ability, before closing her eyes temporarily, then forcing them open. "How long exactly…have I been asleep?"

Youko then suddenly became crestfallen in her facial expression, and Mai lowered her brow in a sullen manner, and Natsuki felt a jolt in the grip Mai had on her hand.

"Two weeks, Natsuki."

Natsuki's eyes painfully widened, and then she forced herself upward hostilely. "Two weeks-

"Please, Natsuki." Youko ordered, standing up and automatically pressing her hands against Natsuki's shoulders. "Do not sit up so suddenly, your ribs are going through extreme recoveries." Then Natsuki felt the pain of her words, as a chasm struck just under her diaphragm, and she flinched and hissed through her teeth, letting Youko's hands force her back down. She breathed deeply for a few moments, Mai still anxiously eyeing her and clasping the trembling hand, then she turned her head with her brow furrowed in agitation as well as pain. "..What happened to me?" She demanded in a rasped voice.

"From what the police say, it appeared you got involved in a fight against five or six men." Youko began, as she simultaneously placed a dampened cloth against the Sapphire woman's perspiring forehead. "They informed us that the men were part of a lethal group found on the other side of Japan they had been trying to locate, so they don't plan on placing any charges for their deaths."

Natsuki frowned, opening one eye, the iris randomly dilating from the bright light in the distance. "…I killed them?"

"All of them." Youko deadpanned. "Investigators said that three of the faces were beaten in while one of them was torn off completely. They found small bone scattered on the scene, and most of them suffered broken necks and legs.

"As for you, you've suffered two broken ribs, excessive bleeding, one fractured shin and a broken collar bone. You're also still recovering from a virus given to you by exposure, since Mikoto found you a few hours after you passed out in a rainstorm."

Natsuki, opened the second eye and motioned her head cautiously upward, seeing Mikoto overhead, who smiled attentively.

Natsuki smiled weakly. "You saved my ass, kid."

"You owe me." Mikoto crossed her arms wantonly.

Natsuki looked momentarily at the light above, eyes instantaneously wanting to evade the burning such a strong light had caused. But Natsuki's lips had so discretely parted, and as she stared into the seething glare, her subconscious erupted into her present mind as the light resembled the great fire in her nightmares. How it pierced her pupils mercilessly, how it's ungodly glare exposed her. How it produced her a naked form to the wrathfulness and the coldness of nature. Then her eyes averted down to her hands. She gently jerked nerves and tendons that connected the metacarpals to the white and pale knuckles that so complementary developed her own hands. How the bones of her fingers contracted slowly, and then quickly, how she clenched those fingers into fists, and all of a sudden did she notice how the flexing of those hand muscles triggered the muscular equations of her forearms, and how the skin bore and tightened against each muscle, how it angelically flowed against the wiry, lean tissue. In the moment, she felt magnificent, to have beheld the role of such a beautiful and complicated organism.

But then, in a raw realization, she saw what she conceived as beautiful muscle, beautiful skin, was tainted and dirtied. Her swollen, large pupils of her eyes scanned over small smudges against the skin, how the years of aging and complexion to create something so awesome was so easily violated by dirty, infectious markings. Her lips parted more, for the sharp breath to escape her. Suddenly the feeling of life, the privilege, the natural sensation of life began to sink into the back of her spine from the center of her chest. For events so small, so unimportant they could be described to have never occurred, had been taking place before her horrified eyes, as tiny smudges of dark red blood stained, infringed and slowly destroyed her skin. How her eyes revealed it's process of curling tightly against her skin, pulling her away from light and from life, how it drowned her. Devoured her until she could no longer feel life, pulling her until she was under the blood, under the ground.

The blood was coming for her again.

Natsuki violently shot up and the sheets whirled around her, and she started to dart her head and her body form side to side, writhing as far back into the bed as possible. The three girls encircled her, trying to hold her down, but her body was enraged like a wild animal and she droned the same words horridly. "T-the blood… the blood…blood-blood…"

"Natsuki, Natsuki!" She was gripped harshly on the shoulders as Mai tried desperately to pull her back down onto the bed.

"The blood-the blood…The _blood_…"

"Mai, hold her for one more second!"

Mai had barely restrained her, until Youko wrapped an arm around Natsuki's torso from behind and secured her mouth with sleeping gas. Natsuki persisted to war against the toxin, but then her grimace was soothed as she fell deeply into sleep, slowly, and her body went limp in Mai's arms. The woman looked down at her, how her deep, diamond-blue hair sprawled gently against her, like strands of silk. Youko pulled the mask away and set it on the rack beside the generator behind the bed, and she turned to Mai, who's sullen eyes gazed down at the pained, sleeping form of Natsuki in her arms. And how it reminded her of Takumi.

"..Mai?"

But Mai had disregarded Youko's voice, and Mikoto's prodding against her shoulder. Mai disregarded the world, as the tip of her finger gently glided over the scars, and the smoothness of Natsuki's face.

'No matter what comes to hurt you…no matter what tries to conquer you. No matter how much you bleed, how broken you are…you'll always cheat death. It comes for you, and it will try to grab you away, but you just smile a wolfish smile and you look death in it's most cold and ruthless gaze, you laugh like a madman, and then you live through what no normal person could ever survive. It's simple, Natsuki…'

Youko pulled Natsuki from Mai's arms, gently lifting the body down onto the bed. Mikoto pressed her fingers tightly against the flesh of Mai's shoulder through her shirt, and she flinched.

"Mai, you need to answer Youko." Mikoto addressed her sharply, but calmly.

"Yes, Youko, what is it?" Mai pretended up a soft tone while turning her head to the doctor. Youko, in turn, dropped a pair of latex gloves in a small trash bin and replaced them with a fresh pair, looking Mai skeptically in the eye.

"Mai," Youko began, then gazed down at the strained form of Natsuki. "From what you've told me, Natsuki has no beneficial bearings on returning home. She must be forced to eat daily; her body is strong but it is too lean for the recovery process to occur efficiently. She may also suffer severe disease and pain from loss of food intake."

"So, then what is your question?" Mai automatically passed a strand of hanging hair to behind her ear.

"I'm going to ask that you either bring her into your home to aide her, or stay with her at her own home. She cannot be left alone to aide herself, and unfortunately an apartment complex fire has a lot of patients coming in. We are in dire need of room and need to move out other patients. Is this something you can handle, Mai?"

Mai listened to Youko, then she gazed down at Natsuki, who had since been resting more at ease, with a light snore. Her amethyst eyes looked over her scars, her bruises, the bitter reflection of her body when it was found in the cold rain. A reflection of her body as it writhed uncontrollably.

"What do you suppose she meant, Youko?"

"Excuse me?" Youko widened her eyes, and Mai looked back up at her seriously.

"When she began chanting "the blood". What do you suppose that was?"

Youko sighed and placed a hand beneath her chin. "She has been exposed to things most humans could not survive. It could possibly have done some psychological damage to her from the amount of damage she had taken as well as dealt. Which is another vital reason she shouldn't be left alone."

Mai looked off at Youko, slightly off to the side as her eyes wandered pensively, and then she looked onto Natsuki again. Gently, a smile came to her as a gentle hand placed itself over one of the raven-haired woman's.

_It's so simple, my Natsuki._

"I will bring her home. And I'll stay with her, and will nurse her back to health to the best of my ability."

She could feel the slow smile of Youko opposite the hospital bed. "I expected no less from you, Tokiha. As you and I both know the mannerisms of Ms. Kuga, she will possibly deny humanly aide if we offer. While she sleeps, we'll bring her home in an ambulance so her body is comfortable, and we will help you rest her inside, the rest will be up to you. Nonetheless, we believe that if anyone is going to successfully heal her wounds, you're the only one she'd accept it from."

Mai looked a bit more attentively with a slight cock of her head. "What do you mean, Youko?"

Youko smiled astutely. "What do I mean, Ms. Tokiha?"

Mai let the deviant words sink in, and then she decrypted the meaning of those words, and she smiled pleasingly. "That's the truth, I hope."

"We'll see. For now, I just paged car-58. They'll be here to pick up Natsuki shortly." Youko lifted herself from the barstool and moved to scant areas of the white room. "Please gather your things, you two."

Mai still smiled genuinely, then turned her head downward to Natsuki, with her hand still gently resting upon the other. Her eyes gazed longingly, anxiously, following down each strand of burning sapphire of Natsuki's hair like a river in the outer reaches of space, where the stars illuminated the beauty of the universe.

'Natsuki…'

_Save me from this fire._

'While you're too weak to fight alone…'

_I cry your war-song._

'I will fight this war beside you.'

_Every broken enemy will know._

'And just as you protected me, when I was weak,'

_You've become invincible._

'I'll protect you, until you are strong enough to be the Natsuki I've grown to love again.'

_You are indestructible._

'It's simple, Natsuki…'

_You are the master of war._

'…I'm always here.'

And she clutched Natsuki's hand in hers once again.


	10. On My Own

_A/N: It's a miracle, isn't it? Well, I blame my own laziness, and procrastination for how long this took me. I'm about halfway through chater 11 as of now. Hopefully, this (unfortunately uneventful chapter) will suffice until the next installment. Enjoy for now~._

**A Perfect Circle**

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It was a strange sort of ambivalence Natsuki felt about her when she woke. Her mind was agitated, shrouded by unremitting waves of deep pain in the back of her head. Her vision was hindered by the heaviness of her eyelids, but as she came to, the weight slowly became tolerable. The muscles in her limbs automatically went into spasm, and her face wrinkled into a distortion of pain as the tendons and limbs ached almost to a numbing point. But she felt a warmth, a sensual, welcoming warmth, that she subsided against, waiting for the newfound friendliness of something soft and warm to humble her imminently chilling skin. Was she in a place of pain, or comfort?

Then she heard knocking.

It was a soft, consistent and rapid knocking. It stopped abruptly, and then it began again. Some knocks were progressed and soft, while others were sudden and loud, as if, by accident. Natsuki listened more intently. There were subtle sounds of ruffling. Knocking and ruffling, yet not hostile. Her blood did not rush through her veins and her heart did not violently beat against her chest. She could calmly breathe. Whatever was beyond her closed eyes, she felt a safeness with.

A gentle groan escaped her soft lips and into the air, and she slowly began to toil her eyes open. Slowly, the blur of darkness was subjugated to blinding colors and intense lighting. Her face wrinkled again, until her pupils humbled themselves against the light, then she began to see clearly. There was a momentary demur, but then Natsuki was able to fully open her dreary eyes in realization. She was in her bedroom.

Then she looked down at a bent figure close to the floor. Dark orange hair, like copper fire.

"…Mai…"

Mai's head turned before her body stood to it's full height. Her amethyst eyes were tired but calm, and there was a bit of an oily gleam to her skin. She looked down at Natsuki who lay in her bed, a sleepy glint in her eye, and Mai smiled a wide, gentle smile. She took a docile step toward Natsuki, and when her shoe hit the wood, Natsuki looked up.

Mai's footsteps were what was making the soft knock on her bedroom floor. Then she looked down at Mai's arms, and she hung Natsuki's clothing that was scattered across the floor on her forearm.

Her dirty clothes being picked up by Mai was what hade made the ruffling sound.

Natsuki smiled to herself. A feeling of security cradled her.

"Natsuki…" Mai cooed in the softest voice, and the said raven-haired woman flickered her eyelids and forced her fatigued vision upward. She gazed tiredly into the pools of convivial amethyst, as Mai genuinely made her way closer to Natsuki. She sat herself carefully on the edge of the bed, causing Natsuki's body to slide where Mai's weight pressured the bed down. She grunted softly in her throat, and suddenly her eyes abruptly widened; she felt the perspiration and the coolness of Mai's forehead as she placed it against her own. Natsuki's now attentive emerald eyes gazed into Mai's as she looked off pensively. She watched how her irises dilated randomly at intervals of the morning sunrise as it beamed golden fire through the windows. How those beams of tranquil flames glistened eloquently against the subtly golden red strands of her silken hair…how her breath invaded the scent around them, and Natsuki could smell the enticing spearmint and strawberry that Mai had breathed through her slightly parted lips, that Natsuki had also noticed were a subtle, delicious pink, that glistened from her sweet strawberry lip-gloss…

Raptures that had captivated Natsuki from her pain and from her tiredness, as she gazed at what she felt to have been a goddess over her, touching her mortal skin with immortal ecstasy, until just as quickly as it had come, Mai pulled her forehead away, and those rapturous visions left Natsuki's sight, and instantly she felt the harsh chasms her body had been suffering again.

Although the sweetened scent of strawberry and spearmint still lingered pleasantly, so it was tolerable.

"You're a bit warm." Mai looked down at her thoughtfully. "How do you feel?"

"It's not so bad…" Natsuki grimaced, then looked bitterly down at her body. Her collarbone and arm was constrained, and she could feel the latex of the cast on her leg beneath the blankets. It was a disdainful restriction on her once free and careless body.

She could feel the wandering eyes of the woman watching over her, so she moved her head back, slowly and with a hitch in her throat from an aching sensation in her neck. Her eyes connected with those of Mai, who after a moment smiled genuinely. Natsuki averted her gaze and distressingly looked about the room, working to defocus her mind on the sharp twists of pain in her skin and her muscles. She could feel the air of Mai's patience while she rested a hand against Natsuki's side, and her lip curled slightly. She brought her eyes back to look at Mai, who had been idly curling a strand of her copper hair around a finger. She looked up at Natsuki indolently and grinned.

"Unfortunately, I can't let you undo these casts. Strict order from Youko." She stated pointedly down at Natsuki in a teasing tone.

Natsuki glared. "Damnit all with these things. I've survived a hell of a lot more than some bullshit injuries." She slowly began to sit upright, and instantly she felt the simultaneous burning of her muscles as they strained to contract, and she could feel the numbing pain of her broken collar bone as she toiled upward. Once she bent her stomach and sat up, she breathed harshly outward and gritted her teeth, her face wrinkled in a persistent agony that dissipated once her muscles relaxed. The pain subsided, and she exhaled a depressed sigh, looking up at the obliquely amused face of Mai with a defiant sneer.

"Alright, alright, I don't need you chastising me." Natsuki raised her unbroken arm in surrender, and hunched herself over, rubbing a temple of her head idly. Strands of her wild, oily hair tickled her skin, but she chose to discard it and only ceased her brow in annoyance.

"Much better." Mai replied calmly. But then she designated her eyes onto Natsuki in seriousness. "Are you too mentally stressed right now, to talk?"

"Mentally, compared to myself physically, I might as well be pissing pixie dust and throwing up rainbows." She drawled wryly, face still permanently wrinkled in pain. Mai could only partially cover her mouth as she laughed, before pausing and then sighing. She lowered her hand and then her gaze, down onto the bed, where she could see small areas had been dampened, possibly liquid from some of Natsuki's exposed wounds. Her gaze was blank, and then her eyebrows ceased sullenly.

"Do you remember?" Mai began demurely. "The night we found you?"

Mai could feel Natsuki's pensive gaze on her, so she looked up indirectly. Natsuki stiffened, feeling the sullenness in Mai's eyes, then turned her head to the side and absently caressed her cast.

"I remember vaguely what happened." She began in a husky tone. Mai became attentive.

"I remember the woman those bastards were harassing, and the anger I felt that night, was all but forgettable. Then I knew I just started running…like a mantra in my head that wouldn't allow me to stop. After that, I only remember scant parts of fighting; I was probably hit in the head a good number of times."

"Youko found a few scrapes along your scalp, and bruises, but other than that, no major injuries." Mai replied, then looked more directly into Natsuki's eyes with a mellow glaze over the shade of diamond-like violet of her own eyes. Natsuki's eyes were their traditional hardened emerald, and she smiled inwardly when she saw the pained shards of green soften when she looked at her. It was an affect undeniable to Mai, that she knew she had on the wily woman. And it pleased her to know she could use it willingly, knowing that Natsuki's stubbornness would simply enable her to deny the fact that Mai's motherly gaze calmed her.

'If only, I could mellow the pain your body must be feeling with just my eyes.' she began to think. 'Unfortunately, and fortunately at that, I am only human. I was immortal once, and I would never wish such a contagion of immortality on my worst enemy.'

Her mask of comfort left her eyes unknowingly, and she only noticed when Natsuki looked hard at her, possibly feeling awkward from the prolong silence. Mai readjusted her gaze, but did not smile, which she saw in Natsuki's eyes as perturbing.

"Sorry, Natsuki." She looked down. "I'm afraid I'm just as pained from this as you…the day we found you. I had to look at a different you, an entirely different person. So beaten, that you couldn't open your eyes." Mai harshly gripped the blankets, and Natsuki grunted when Mai accidentally applied force to her leg from under the blankets. She gasped quietly and pulled her hand away, then sighed and settled it on her lap.

"I'm increasingly stressed, if you haven't noticed."

"I noticed. Only waiting for you to admit it was a pain in the ass." Natsuki tiredly smirked, sensing the tug of a smile Mai had on her face while looking down. Then she gazed seriously at the woman sitting on the edge of her bed.

"Hey, Mai. Look at me." She said lowly.

Mai obediently looked up at Natsuki, looking into her hazy orbs of a tired green. Mai began to comprehend that her eyes were consistently tired, when in her normal state would be aware and awake since she first opened them, and that that would be a differentiation to deal with. A very tired and frail Natsuki, completely transformed from the soldier-like sweep in her cold step.

'Though, she will always be cold, since it's unlike her to be anything else but.' Mai chided in herself. 'Although, I know she's different with me. She's more annoyed with me, but she's also more patient, and more understanding. She's shown affection to me, one way or another. She's gripped me and begged me not to fall off the edge, and as strange to me as it sounds, a powerful god can so easily beg, as she did. Just like a mortal. But I don't think she's ever thought of herself as immortal. Or, more appropriately, she's never addressed herself as mortal, so whatever emotions confide in her, she allows to express them naturally. Digressing from that though…' she refocused herself in order to listen to Natsuki, who patiently grasped her attention.

"I'm usually blunt, so, I'm going to be straight-forward right now." She hardened her gaze.

The usual callousness of those military eyes.

"I'm not comfortable with you waiting on me, cleaning for me, dressing and feeding me; basically, I'm not comfortable with you as my maid. I know the basic objective is for you to make sure I'm fine, but I'm not willing to weaken myself like that. I've chosen to still be the stubborn-ass that I am, and I want to heal on my own."

But when Mai paused absently, Natsuki made a waiting expression, and then Mai only let a smug smile deviate itself onto her face.

"I knew from the start you'd say that, or, something like that. Please, Natsuki, express yourself with proof of your ambition." Natsuki felt the grime of sarcasm on the ladder sentence, and glowered at Mai with a tint of curiosity. The red-haired maiden grinned again, then turned her head, brought herself from the bed and took a few short steps before turning and looking down playfully at Natsuki. "Come and touch my hand."

"Excuse me?" Natsuki leered, her brow raising in confusion.

"Lift yourself from that bed, and come and touch my hand. I'll know from that if you can handle yourself on your own." She let out her hand in front of her, and let it hang provokingly. "But, fail to reach me, and I'm assigned to your every need and nimble desire until you're fully healed." Her tone was flippant and provocative.

"Idiot." Natsuki deadpanned with a glare. "I don't lose challenges, painful or not."

"I assume you've never felt the pain of broken bones?" Mai chided.

"No, but I've felt the pain of my Child being blasted into a million miniscule pieces and having my body dissipate into a few specs of dust all in a matter of seconds, damnit." She emphasized the last of her sentence through gritted teeth, then she grasped the edge of the blanket and flung it over herself. After a mere few seconds, she paused, then her eyes tightly flinched shut and she yelped through her gritted teeth, laying back harshly into the bed as her muscles became inflamed and ached throughout her body.

Mai tightly pursed her lips from laughing and only grinned widely, a mischievous glint in her eyes while continuing to flaunt her hand in the open.

Natsuki mumbled inaudible curses, then with visible difficulty, began to force herself up again. Her nose wrinkled and she bore her teeth like fangs as she breathed harshly in pain, Mai inwardly chuckling to herself all the while. She turned onto her side, and then she lowered the leg closest to the edge onto the floor. As her foot touched the wood, she grinned in a momentary triumph, and began continuing her trek off of the bed. The majority of her bodyweight was now off the bed, and her unbroken leg even shook with instability, but Natsuki shifted her hip to hold her upper body onto the bed, and she held herself, looking at the floor thoughtfully, with an oily glisten on her face from sweat. She heard Mai giggle and instantly looked up to glare critically.

"You look rather ridiculous, Natsuki. Are you sure depleting your dignity like this is worth it?" She asked in a humored tone, wiggling in her position to provoke the struggling woman, who in turn growled in her throat and refocused her eyes onto the floor. Precariously, she shifted her hip that moved her weight from off the bed, and then she suddenly had to hold herself up using her unbroken arm as her cased leg slid off the bed, and onto the floor. She yelped even louder, barely containing herself as it bumped against the floor. Natsuki took a deep breath, and then she slowly lowered herself, until her side was against the floor and her body on the ground. She panted lightly and grunted as she pulled her body across the floor using her free arm and pushing with her leg. Her distance to effort ratio was about one to ten, still being able to feel the fallen sheets on the back of her foot as she panted and lay exhausted on the floor. She lay to gather herself, then blinked and looked up, Mai still about the same distance away, and the said woman was looking down at her with mild amusement.

A silence lingered in between them, then finally, a drawn out sigh passed from Natsuki's lips, as her body went limp against the floor, in exhaustion and defeat.

"See? I knew you'd see it my way. . ." Mai's triumphant words lingered, a smirk playing her lips as she waited for her friend to react. But a temporary silence made Mai slowly withdraw her sneer into a curious frown, and her eyebrow quirked downward. She bent her neck and leaned forward, gazing longingly for any sign of movement or action. An even longer moment of idleness brought her a step forward.

"Natsuki?" Mai pleaded quietly, making her way down onto her knees, just in front of the woman, who's raven hair enveloped her face in a silken shroud. Cautiously, she bent closer down, and raised a hand with fingers just barely caressing over her soft hair. She sifted her fingertips through the dark locks and gently strewed them back, away from Natsuki's covered face. The previously arrogant and passionate soldier had fallen prey to fatigue, and had fell fast asleep in the exact spot she stopped crawling. Mai just stared, gaping a bit, then she felt her face rise dramatically as a warm smile enveloped her, then let Natsuki's moonlight hair fall back against her face, with a final, single touch of her cheek.


	11. I've Heard It's the Softest Thing Ever

_It's been so long! Well, I can only blame myself. I was having the worst time not only figuring out how this chapter was going to begin, but where I wanted it to end as well. Plus, I try to set a particular mood for each chapter. Once I found it, I was able to finish it off rather efficiently. Not to mention this chapter was delayed because I desperately wanted to finished chapter 12 before I posted it (which I haaaaaave.) Well, I suppose you could say I'm trying to speed up the "intimacy" process with Natsuki and Mai, so expect the more "darker" scenes to come a couple chapters later. That being said, after approximately 6 months, I leave you with chapter 11 of 'A Perfect Circle'._

_Please enjoy! AND REVIEW!!!_

**A Perfect Circle**

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…_This is the end of an era._

…_This is the end of second chances._

"Natsuki?"

Natsuki's tentative eyes snapped open, and she looked up at Mai, who of which was holding a steaming bowl in her hands, what appeared to be soup. Natsuki let out a sigh, turning her head back down in disinterest. The raven sunk her body down, as if slowly descending into her, now deformed and overwhelmed bedding, in an abrupt distress and depression. Mai watched how her body sullenly repressed itself, and her face mourned for her with a frown.

"What's bothering you?" Her voice questioned in its motherly sort of instigating manner, and her amethyst orbs gazed longingly, searching for the now distraught warrior to respond. But the body further became tremulous, quivering unto itself, like a weathered elder who would be perpetually growing frail, or a building of which would undergo corrosion by the wind's debris and wrath. Mai flinched in a distortion of passion, and setting the bowl down beside, on the end table beside the dilapidated bed, she sat herself aside Natsuki and pressed a warm hand against the back that had grown sore from days of inertia. Just as the virtuous hand came down on her back, Natsuki, with lethargic effort, brought up her heavy head and exposed the deadness of her features. Eyes were deep in bloodshot from even deeper sleep, and dark circles plagued the skin around her withering, now ivory green pools. Her gaunt complexion was exposed by the accumulating paleness of her skin. The healer's eyes were temporarily sympathetic but then had hardened, recuperating from the sadness and the hatred held in those eyes of the warrior.

A silence manifested in between the contact of violets and emeralds, until the violets glistened harshly.

"You make yourself this way," the barriers of silence were broken, leading to a flinch in Natsuki's features. "The way you let yourself be pained by being cared for, and the way…the way you let these trivial things make you feel pathetic when it's your own self-righteousness tells you that you just have to make it on your own - when others are there for you."

Natsuki had lowered her chastised orbs, her dimly kindled sparks fading with sharpness of each of Mai's words. Her brow ceased and wrinkled her nose bridge, and the sensitivity of her face, softened by inertia, became more apparent.

"…I-"

"You refuse to eat, unless I force you. You don't answer when I ask if you need something, when you obviously do. And you ignore and defy my help when you ignorantly try and pull your almost completely broken body out of bed!" Natsuki's voice, toiled and weak, had been abruptly intervened by the annoyance and anger Mai had built in temperance. The raven assumed her pride and faced her instigator, battling the rattled amethyst with her weakened and discolored expression, which had slowly been drawing life from the adrenaline she began to feel manifest inside of her.

"…You need to learn-"

"Years of solitude and alienation from this world, a lifestyle that addicts a person to that isolation everyday, you don't know what it's like to try and change so fucking drastically…" the wolf had taken it's stand and bore it's seething fangs, and Natsuki's toiled eyes glistened in an upsurge, all weaknesses dissipating momentarily. Mai's features dramatically went under submission to her.

"…to change so drastically…to overcome the addiction of a drug because someone orders you to." The sentence began an abrupt cough that exhausted Natsuki into the bed. Her lungs pressed into her after each reprimanding breath, the muscles in her body inflamed in soreness. She heaved for breath afterward, and her head grew weighted and created addition of difficulty to open her eyes completely. So she weakly lingered her view to Mai, apathy, yet tenderness distorted in her eyes and across her complexion. The dimming irises kept minuscule features in their grasp, or, what was misconstrued as minuscule to the world Natsuki had obtained an infatuation. Her hair appeared like the millions of righteous beams of the sun, in it's triumphant gleam through the malicious, blackened clouds of a passing thunderstorm. Each strand poured onto another, and their light, illumination of enflamed ruby tips were in overture of her darkened, blazing copper locks. How, when she moved her eyes, Natsuki would see how the lilac orbs before her would follow, as would two planets in orbit with one another, constantly in polar equality, separate from the other distant, cold worlds surrounding. The only two worlds of life, in this otherwise lifeless universe.

And, in this lifeless universe, you're the last star that has yet to fall from me.

"I know that forcing myself on you is sudden, and difficult." Mai said. "But, just try to cope with this, alright?" The desperation lingered dryly on her words, begging for acceptance. "It's…for my own selfish reasons, if anything else, that I'm here."

Natsuki refocused herself and looked up attentively. "Selfish?"

It was then Mai tore her eyes away, callously almost, and lowered her head like that of a scolded student. "I could never sleep at night, knowing you were here alone, with no one to know your condition, or there was an accident, and no one was here to help you. It pained me, to think of something like that."

"And so you infiltrate my home against my free will to grabble at my feet all day long." Natsuki rolled her eyes.

Mai only smiled. "If you want to put it that way, yeah, I guess so."

There was a jerk under the sheets. Natsuki flinched, groaning quietly in her throat. With an effort, she toiled until her body sat upright in the bed, and one of her legs bent up, slowly. Both she and Mai watched in silence, until Mai said, "So, it's as if it gets better every day."

"That's because it is. I heal like a motherfucker." Natsuki smirked, gently contacting the muscles, each separate tendon and formed piece of tissue to move the bent leg. Her bones ached with each forced movement, but she defied these whims of weakness and continued exercising her newly recovered limb. An aura of thought shrouded her, and she sighed, sinking in to herself.

"It's scary, when I think of the reality of it."

Mai turned to look at her.

"The thought of losing everything that I'm made of… my arms," she looked at her arm. "my legs, what enable me to be the way I am. And to have them stripped from me. More valuable than a crown, or any title I could ever possess. If I had lost my body parts, if they never healed…I probably would have killed myself." Her sentence traveled off in a poisonous tone, and her smirk was sullen and pain ridden.

"You're better than that." Mai defended, though her own thoughts were with Natsuki's. '…What if you really had lost something?'

"But that aside, I haven't lost anything. Maybe a sense of pride for not being able to walk out of the fight," Natsuki snorted, turning her head to the side, looking down at a blood stain on her sheets. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "but other than that, everything seems like it's healing as it should."

"What possessed you to do it? Thinking you still had the Child inside of you…" Mai began, and she felt the tension in Natsuki's muscles from her edge of the bedside.

"I don't need a child. I ripped that guy's face off Mai!" She protested, her arm waving for exaggeration. "Not just scratched it, or bruised it, I tore it the FUCK off his head. Without my Child. And I'll always be able to fight, because I'll always make it out alive."

Mai cringed. "Barely alive, Natsuki. The… only thing that saved you was the fact that no vital damage was done to your brain. If you had anything along the lines of a concussion or above, your body would have gone into shock, and died."

"That's what Youko told me." Mai finished, her voice lower, and quieter as she continued to speak.

Natsuki continued looking down at her sheets, callously. Her pupils remained focused on the bloodstain. How, as she stared into it's dark, drying red, it appeared to slither, deeper and deeper into the pores of the fabric. Natsuki imagined the coloring as it seeped through each linen pore, the dark, deathly color infecting the pure, white cotton, and staining it forever.

"Natsuki, are you ready to get dressed yet?"

Natsuki detached her gaze and looked at Mai. To answer her questioning look, she grunted and gave a nod. Mai leaned over, and placing one foot onto the floor, she brought Natsuki's arms around her shoulders and lifted her. Slowly, Natsuki brought her encased leg to the floor. Her free arm was offered a crutch, and she hoisted it under her arm. With a relaxed sigh, she breathed a thanks to Mai, who nodded in acknowledgement. Mai then took the time to look at her, and placed a finger against her chin.

"So, what do we dress up Natsuki in today?" She smiled in mock innocence.

"Bite me, Tokiha." But Natsuki did not bother to suppress the smile in her lips. "I don't feel like taking off my boxers, just hand me the jeans on that chair over there."

Mai sighed mockingly, but she giggled as she turned in the direction Natsuki designated. She picked up a folded pair of black jeans, with a chain attached to a studded belt around the waist. Mai quirked her brow.

"Since when do you wear stuff like this?"

"Since when are you my mother." Natsuki limped up to Mai and snatched the pants from her hand, letting them unfold. She sat on the edge of her bed and slid them on, to Mai's surprise, with little difficulty. She stood with her weight on her usable leg and buttoned her jeans. "Alright, I can handle everything else, you can...go do whatever the hell else you do." Natsuki stated, at a loss for better words, and limped toward her dresser.

"Positive you don't need a mother's care?"

"Get the hell out of my room."

A mischievous giggle, and Natsuki heard the door close, Mai absent from the room. Natsuki paused, then sighed as she opened the second to top drawer, and shuffled through it before pulling out a white, slim fitted t-shirt with the words "Parkway Drive" in faded, bold letters.

'I wonder, if she ever thinks my words are purposely hurtful.' Natsuki thought, as she slowly pulled the shirt down over her.

'But why do I care?'

Then she was able to see herself in the mirror. Pale complexion, long, wily, dark raven hair, and faded emerald eyes. Visible muscle around her arms, and even part of her neck, curves rather absent, as her clothes hung from her, giving her a lean, quick body figure. Then, the scars that reminded her. How they tore and slashed through her arms, formed against her skin. Her eyes were still circled in a light purple, a reminder of their merciless beatings. Natsuki looked deep, unconditionally into the reflection of her eyes.

'I care, because it's Mai.' She watched as her pupils dilated against the light beaming at intervals through her uncovered window. How they whirl, calm and large in the darkness, and then how they ravaged in intensity, and shrunk into beads in the sunlight.

'She doesn't deserve the words I say. She was there for me. She was always there for me, even when I hated her, wanted nothing to do with her. She's showing me care when no one else will..'

She continued to look on, until abruptly, she shoved herself off the dresser, and limped toward her door.

"She's softening the hell out of me is what she's doing." She growled to herself.

* * *

"Yeah, she's doing much better. The only thing left to heal is one of her legs." Mai said, phone cradled by her shoulder up against her ear.

"_Oh, well, leave it to the mutt to heal like a damn superhero."_ A voice chuckled softly.

"Anyway, you said Wednesday, next month, right?"

"_If it's not too much trouble. Just a little while to talk to her about a personal matter, and I'll giver her a while more for recovery. Try not to mention it to her, okay? I'd like it to be a surprise."_

"Sure, I don't see why not." Mai heard Natsuki's door hurl open and instantly jumped, startled. "Oh, she came out of her room. I'll talk to you some other time, alright?"

"_Sure thing, hun. Talk to you later."_

"Bye."

Mai clicked the phone off, and set it back on the box. Instantly Natsuki was behind her, and she took Mai by the side and whirled her around with a determined look in her eye.

Mai looked up at her in surprise. "W-what?" She trembled at how tight Natsuki held her.

"Don't give me that. I know what you're up to, damnit!" Natsuki growled. At that aggravated gesture, Mai gasped. 'Did she find out about the phone call just now?' Mai thought worriedly.

"I know why you're taking care of me, for real. It's to soften me up! So I don't fight anymore and end up like this again!" She played a triumphant smirk. "Well, it won't happen, damnit. I saw through your gauze." She snorted with her brow wrinkled.

Mai blinked, then she giggled uncontrollably for a moment. Natsuki quirked her brow, and grunted in agitation at being laughed at. "What the hell are you laughing at?"

Mai stopped, and she caught her breath. Then she looked up to Natsuki with playful, lilac eyes. "You think so, huh?"

Natsuki turned her head.

"You don't think it's just because I care about you? I'm a little hurt." Mai looked down, and whimpered as if she were going to cry. Natsuki, still holding Mai at her side, looked down at her. She sighed, loosening her muscles. "Whatever. Even if you were trying to soften me, my heart's too hard to fall for something so trivial."

Another giggle below her, and Natsuki flared. "What the hell are you laughing at?!"

She gasped. A warmth pressed itself against her chest.

She looked down, and Mai was leaned against her, the side of her face pressed into the middle of her chest. Natsuki could feel her heart beat against her cheek. To Mai, she felt the sounds of her heart echo through her ear. The seconds of Natsuki's life drummed rhythmically into her mind, each unconditional, perpetual beat reminding her that Natsuki was still alive. She could feel Natsuki's warmth through her shirt. She smiled. "What, this heart?"

Natsuki blushed a light pink and looked away, to the floor.

"You know, you might think this heart is cold, and hard, but."

Mai brought their bodies closer. She smiled more, and partially opened her eyes. "I heard it's the softest thing ever."

Natsuki listened deeply to those words. Her emerald eyes wandered across the floor, and unintentionally, they wandered back to the fiery-haired woman below her. It was then her eyes lost their defiance, and the dimples in her cheeks formed with her smile. She took her hand and gently patted it on top of Mai's head, cradling the soft strands of blazing hair in her fingers. She leaned against her crutch, resting, letting the warmth circulate through her body. She opened her eyes to look down at Mai.

'I wonder, if you'll get upset, the day you have to let me go.'

…_Just let me go for now._

'…I know I complain. But I can never thank you enough for what you do for me.'

…_I'll be just fine._

'But…there will be a day. That I will have to separate myself from you.'

…_Now that I'm back on my own._

'I can't let you in Mai… I have to push you away from me…I'm sorry.'

…_I was just another promise that you couldn't keep._

'But… I can't ever let you know what I've become.'


	12. Wounded

_A/N: Alright, I already had it finished, so I'm deciding to post it whilst I'm actually on the computer, on , on my profile, so I stop myself from procrastinating. I'd like to describe this chapter as "the calm before the storm". So, things are definitely picking up soon._

_Enjoy chapter 12 of 'A Perfect Circle' ! Please review!!_

**A Perfect Circle**

* * *

…_Lost, and broken._

…_Hopeless and lonely._

_I'm smiling on the outside…_

…_But hurt beneath my skin._

Over the course of the two and a half months since the night of untrammeled despair - the finding of Natsuki's chastised body - Natsuki had gradually withstood the triumph over human suffering and agony, watching as the bloodied wounds fell under her healing skin, how her scars faded amidst their toil, and how her thrashed bones situated themselves rightfully inside her body. It was no less of a successful recovery, and with new, regenerated life, Mai could depict an aura of childhood integrity beaming off of Natsuki's rejuvenated body.

But the light that had once shown and leered so proudly slowly began to sift away. Natsuki had a dramatic tendency to morph from excitement, to a tenacious listlessness, that paled her skin and drained her embodiment of any youthful stigma. This would go on for days, during which Mai kept a keen eye to her, in worry of an imminent health-related illness putting Natsuki to vulnerable weakness. These periods of precipitous vitality and melancholy were similar to that of bipolarity. On a morning where the skies were a sullen grey and full of rain, with Natsuki still asleep in her concealed room, Mai sat at the ill lit dining room, the static ringing of the phone against her ear.

"_Yes, doctor Youko's office, how may I help you?"_ The voice entranced.

"Hello Youko, it's me, Mai." Mai's voice was light and fragile, half the cause being the weather's subtle effect, and the other being Natsuki's condition plaguing her.

"_Oh, Mai! How good to hear from you. How is Natsuki doing?"_

"Actually, she's about fully recovered since I last talked to you. But, I called to ask a few questions on usual side-effects of someone in this kind of recovery." Her voice channeled down in volume at the end of each sentence.

"_I see. Well, how has she been acting lately?" _Youko paused in mid-sentence, as if she were pausing to take in detail she received.

Mai sighed over the phone, static crackling at its fragile frequency. "Well, at first she was very lively. Actually very lively, even more energetic than before the incident." She responded in a null optimism.

"_And how had she'd been acting before the incident? If I may ask…"_

Amethyst eyes wandered longingly down to the table, searching the warped trails of fine wood markings while her mouth dried. "Before the incident…I had came over to visit her after quite a long time. The things I noticed about her were a bit unsettling, for lack of a better word. You saw her at the hospital right, Youko?"

"_Hmm, I think I know what you mean." _ Was her response, amidst a brief pause for thought. _"In the brief periods I saw Miss Kuga during class last year, she had an abundant, womanly figure to her. She had a full face and full hips, and she bore broad shoulders, physically she was not underweight. But I did have to be very meticulous with her body in order to do any significant surgery when you brought her in.."_ Again, another pause, and breath crackled against the sensitive silence of the line.

"_She had dramatically lost weight, and the womanly figure she once carried was obviously lost. Her face is more gaunt, and her physical build is stronger and leaner. Even bed-ridden, we were able to mark her weight, which is considerably lower than it should be for her height and physical structure."_

"Before the attack, I asked her when the last time she had eaten was, and she said she hadn't eaten in three days. Her house had hardly any food in it before I started bringing groceries to her house." Mai's throat dried and coiled as if it were enclosing itself and tightening. She felt a stinging sensation enflame her eyes, and she blinked them excessively. "I know you couldn't have seen, because her eyes were beaten so bad, but her eyes were also incredibly pale, they always had purple circles under them. And, I remember the way those eyes were like, a long time ago." The ending sentence trembled off of her lips.

"_Mai…"_

"Her eyes were so beautiful, Youko…they were always open and aware, they represented who she was. They were full of life and pride, just like her. Every time she talked to me, I would look into them, and I would feel invigorated, like I could take on the world. Natsuki's always kept me going, she always helped me move just a little bit further, when I felt like…giving up everything…" Now the words strained out from her coiling, burning throat, in between intervals of her hitching sobs searching for breath.

A patient and sympathetic breath flowed over the phone line.

"I was jealous of her eyes because they were always so bright and clear. I could look into them and feel safe, like…she would be able to protect me from everything just because of those eyes. But when I saw her…her eyes were scared and lonely. They were so empty and cold…they weren't the eyes of the Natsuki I used to know. They were either angry, or paranoid. Youko…I don't know how to help her. They look as empty and lonely as before, no matter how much I try to make them look warm again."

"_Mai…"_ Youko let Mai's restrained whimpers and inward pleas die down before she calmly spoke again. _"I want to help you, Mai. I really want to help you."_ Her voice was low and bitter, all the while sympathetic to Mai's sentimental pain.

"_Can you tell me, how Natsuki has been acting?"_ The doctor's voice plead on the opposite line. There was a moment of silence, Mai sniffing into the phone and causing miniscule static against the speaker.

"Well, like I said before, she was seeming to act a lot more lively than usual. She got up early, and actually willingly went out with me during the day. Her skin had better color, she ate regularly and had a decent appetite, and…her eyes started to look like what they used to. But…after a few days of that, she suddenly laid in her bed for most of the day, her skin was pale, she would stumble around the house, and she would never go out. She was always angry and irritated, and yelled at me whenever I talked to her. She would shiver a lot, and her hands were always shaky… she stayed up all night and slept all day…I couldn't get her to eat for more than three or four days at a time, and I could barely get her to eat more than half a meal then.." her voice became hoarse again, and this time the stinging and burning let loose a thin trail of tears at the corners of her paining amethyst eyes.

A pause emitted from Youko's end.

"_Mai…assaults are known to cause many emotional problems, depending on the varying severity. From your reports, it seems as though she has physically healed fine, but, what you're describing to me in attitude, is not normal…"_

And Mai became uncharacteristically attentive to Youko's words. Each impending and imminent breath she clung to for the next word. Because the tone that the conversation was drifting to spelled out something unfortunate. Absent-mindedly to Mai, her heart pulsated against the prisms of her chest and echoed in her ears. Redness formed in her face from the heat of her emotions that had simultaneously caused the tears to roll down her cheeks. Again, she listened. She pleaded inside.

"_What's being described is not the normal aftereffect of someone who has undergone what Natsuki has. The mood swings, yes, those are common amongst patients. But her shivering, her shaking, her unwillingness to eat or sleep, stumbling around, is the result of a different kind of physical struggle."_

Mai stopped breathing.

"_It is common among the withdrawal methods of heroin addicts."_

Mai's head felt as though it were being crushed inward. Her brain felt suffocated. Her lungs felt constricted, as if she could not breathe fast enough.

"_Mai, I want you to stay calm. I know you're panicking, but I want you to relax."_ Youko could hear Mai's raspy, forced breaths over the phone line. _"Natsuki is different. These symptoms could merely be her way of dealing with the emotional and physical pain. I'm not jumping to any conclusions, and neither should you. I would have her drug tested, though it would be too late now. Since you have been there, it would be over two months. Any sign of drugs inside her blood would be nigh. Bring her to me as soon as possible, so that I can have a checkup on her. Mai?"_

"…Yes." Mai let herself breathe. Her lungs vibrated, and her throat swelled. She stared off listlessly, and proceeded with a monotone response, "Yes, I'll bring her. Tomorrow."

The sound of an opening door caused Mai to jump. Her face did not go to turn, as she hurriedly mumbled. "Youko, she's awake. I have to go."

"_Alright, Mai. Please take care. Tell Natsuki I give her my best."_

Mai's thumb clicked the phone off, and she had it on the table before she subtly turned to look at the recently woken Natsuki. Her hair poured messily over her shoulders and face, of which was pale with inertia. A sensation of warmth pervaded Mai's features at glance of Natsuki's sporting bra, and lean, muscled abdomen in naked view. The raven had a hand scratching the corner of her scalp, as her heavy, dull eyes moved to Mai at the dining table, hardly taking in the exasperated glances she had been receiving.

"…Morning…" Natsuki's greeted her in a husked, tired voice.

Mai blinked, rather surprised. "G-good morning." She quickly ran a hand over her eyes, in hopes that her previous crying was not obvious.

There was a pause amidst the two girls, before Natsuki turned into the living room. "Could you make me something to eat please…" She grumbled blearily, with no indication of hostility or aggravation.

Again, in great amazement, she nodded and absent-mindedly hurried from her chair and into the kitchen. She ripped open the cupboard and slammed the pan down onto the stove, and even before closing the cabinets, she rushed into the refrigerator and snatched the eggs, pulling them out and cracking them into the pan. She did everything with unnecessary speed. However, Natsuki never asked for food to be made for her. And here she was, as if it were routine for her to ask Mai for breakfast.

'…Why now…' Mai pandered with heavy seriousness in her thoughts, while simultaneously moving to and fro to assess Natsuki's breakfast. '..Why is she better today? What causes her to act normal…and then enraged the next minute?'

She then took the time to stop what she had been in the process of doing, and stared down at the meal slowly cooking before her.

'What if in my efforts, she gets irritated and throws this food onto the floor, and yells at me for trying to feed her? What stops her from doing that?' Her gaze became enveloped into her thoughts, and completely distracted from the actual world. The pan sizzled angrily, and suddenly a sensation as cold as ice touched the naked skin of Mai's bare shoulder, and she jumped with a gasp and twisted around, dropping the spatula onto the floor.

Natsuki slowly bent over and retrieved the spatula, lazily holding it to her side. When she stood up, she eyed Mai with a crestfallen expression. "Something wrong? You look sick." She stated in her raspy voice.

Mai was still, but then she took in a long breathe, and shook her head. She looked up in Natsuki's eyes, that were their normal color of emerald green. She could still feel heaviness in her chest, but she still felt a sense of pleasure at the sight of Natsuki, and how her skin expressed its normal complexion, and how were eyes beamed with a new sense of life. Mai relaxed her shoulders and immediately replaced her surprise with a smile. "I'm not sick…I was just thinking. Thanks for caring, though."

Natsuki's face felt suddenly heated, and she looked down some, to the floor, before turning her head toward the cabinets. "Well, I was just making sure. It's not like I want to have to baby-sit you if you don't start feeling well."

'Perhaps, if I can test her..'

"Ah, of course not. If nothing's convenient for Natsuki, nothing's convenient for anyone." Mai stated with dramatic exasperation as she twirled backward, to face the stove.

"That line belongs to me, Tokiha." Natsuki bit, slamming the door to the refrigerator she had been in previously. It shook with a vengeance.

Mai smirked discretely to herself, feeling triumphant having gotten Natsuki to animate herself, of which proved some improvement of health. But then she felt a sudden twist of air behind her, and before she could move, two hands formed their grips around both her wrists, with Natsuki's body pressed tightly behind her. She would have gasped, or have tried to fight her off, but a sensation kept her knees locked in place, and her body lifeless as a mannequin.

"I can feel that damn smirk on your face, Mai. I won't have it." Natsuki seemed to have chided into her ear, but the elaboration of words faded into mumbled nothings, since Mai had only felt the feeling of hot breathe caressing her ear, and at the back of her neck. Her mind had also been captivated by Natsuki's body pressing itself against her, and how she could feel the warmth envelope her so quickly. Natsuki's hands were almost dead to the touch, they represented such a strong cold. It sent shivers down her body, that were instantly retaliated by the newly acquired warmth beaming from Natsuki. The older woman herself caught how Mai had leaned into her chest, and paused in her smirk to act surprised.

"…Mai…? Are you sure you're alright…" Natsuki questioned slowly, and her breath hitched when Mai's red hair tickled her cheeks as she bent backwards, and the way her neck arched, and how her head subtly rested into the crutch of Natsuki's neck. And she looked into nothingness, thoughts completely evaporating as it happened, but then her senses came, and then she hastily took Mai by the arms, lead her upright and turned her around. Mai looked dazed, but then she recognized the seriousness of the older woman, and how her large, emerald eyes were searching her. Her breath stilled, and she looked into Natsuki's eyes with a fusion of embarrassment and fear. Her body loosened, and a heavy sigh lifted out from her lungs.

"It's just stress, I'm sorry." She quickly took control of herself and moved out from Natsuki's grip. She sifted the bangs of her hair with her fingers nervously. "I was up early because it was hard for me to sleep, so I didn't sleep well…" Mai was stumped on what to say, so she looked down, away from Natsuki, who looked at her with dark eyes. The silence reigned over them, momentarily, until Natsuki shifted in her place and removed herself from the kitchen. Exhausted with tension and anxiousness, Mai let out a heavy breath and leaned against the counter, looking into nothingness with an empty expression in her eyes, down to the floor.

'I can't accept your change of heart so simply, Natsuki. I can never predict what face you'll be wearing when I let myself open to you. The pain of rejection may be poisoning to see on your face when I ignore you, or push you away, but it's only because I can't let my walls be broken when your sadness and loneliness turns into anger and rage. I will never shut you out, Natsuki. I will never abandon you, no matter how hard you try to put fear into me, or threaten me with your animalistic behavior. But, I will protect myself, even if it means having to see the light in your eyes turn dark. For now, you'll have to harden your heart for me, the same way I have for you.' Mai thinks to herself, as she finds an unknown strength to bring herself to the opening doorway of the kitchen and lean against the side, looking at Natsuki out in the living room, as she looks out the glass sliding door out to the small apartment balcony. The rain crashed weakly against the glass, and each drop raced each other down to the bottom of the door, collecting amidst a puddle that streamed down the cracks of the wooden balcony floor. Nastuki watched, with her empty, tired eyes, as the water flowed eternally down into the open intervals of aging wood, seeping through its pours and into the soil of the earth below.

Mai took in the scene in absolute silence, hearing the crash of rain over her own breath. She could see that, from the reflection of the sun's white light from behind the grey clouds outside, the shine of each strand of Natsuki's twilight hair. If she could, she would have reached out, with an envious hand, and gathered up that long flowing of hair and raced through it with her fingers.

"Natsuki." She whispered through the room, in hope that it would echo just loud enough to be heard. Natsuki made a gesture that justified she had actually been aware of a secondary presence, by slightly jerking her shoulder.

"…I wanted to let you-"

"Before you-say, anything…" Natsuki suddenly intervened, her voice raspy with sleep and dryness of the throat, and she had not turned away from the view of the glass door.

"I'm…" The silence was heavily weighted, and the air in the room distilled by awkwardness. "I'm sorry…for the way I've been lately." Still facing the glass, she sighed, fogging the window with a space of hot breath. She slumped her shoulders and smiled bitterly. "I've been a fucking bipolar bitch, and all you've done is sit on your hands and knees and serve my every need, just to make sure I was happy. You cared about me, and I just have to live up to some pretended, solo, lone wolf bullshit persona and treat you like shit just to try and push you away."

Her pale hand pressed against the glass; feeling its raw chill sent goosebumps along her arm. "I realize, that those efforts weren't made because you were obligated to make them, but because you actually care about me. It's not because of anything else but that, and the truth, in it's most naked, rawest state, shows that you've been here all along because you actually care.."

Natsuki felt instigating eyes upon her, and she reacted to that feeling of Mai's eyes with a crooked, nervous smile. "Sorry, I don't have a feel for this cheesy bullshit. I'm trying the best I can, but I don't think it's coming out very well-"

An envelopment of warmth came upon Natsuki from behind as arms pressed themselves desperately against her, pressing her body against another in such a wanting embrace. She shifted slightly forward, and her breath had become lost in the moment that Mai intertwined their bodies together.

"…It's good enough…for me." Mai pushed her face against Natsuki's back, midnight locks sifting over her cheeks and nose and tickling them. Natsuki wrinkled her face as she listened to Mai desperately hold in sobs threatening to give way. Her body clenched. Her first pressed harshly against the glass, and then her hand, cold as ice, pushed off the door and her body turned in an abrupt manner. Mai had been pushed away, and then just as suddenly she was brought in again, and strong, cold arms welcomed her. Her eyes were blurred to where she could not see the smile that Natsuki's face had bared, and her knuckles were white with the strength of her grip on the woman's shirt. In the moment that Natsuki's warmth that given itself to her, she could feel her insides rising into such a powerful intensity of emotion that her body gave way to tears, and her body racked and sobbed into Natsuki's chest. The young girl of emerald eyes tightened her muscles and brought Mai even closer to her, allowing both of them to fall to their knees on the floor. Natsuki used her hand to cradle Mai's head up into the crutch of her neck, and she could feel the hot breath and tears against her chilled flesh. She listened to Mai's whimpers, and cries and sobs, as if they were the only sound she had ever heard, and she let her chin rest atop Mai's head, and ran her cold fingers down through the soft strands of Mai's brilliantly illuminated hair, just as the coming sun prevailed through the dark rain clouds. There was a warmth that came from this new sense of light, but neither bodies felt this. They only felt the warmth of each other's being, and the other's soul, and their own significant touch that was impossible to be felt in any other place, nor time.

"…N'Natsuki…" Mai breathed, desperately in coherence, through her broken voice. "I…I only wanted you to see…that I'm still here for you…Natsuki."

She was only hushed, and pulled closer. And the silence was all that lingered in the room for the longest time, until the clouds completely allowed the sun to glow in the sky. In that amount of time, it lead to Natsuki with her back against the arm of the couch, and Mai lying on her, with her head resting against her chest, and Natsuki's arms around her in a motherly embrace. She had still been running her hands through her hair, and Mai had been silently gazing out the glass door, watching the rainbow that had appeared beyond the mountains. She brought her lips apart.

"Natsuki?"

There was no demur in motion, and Natsuki had still been looking ahead. "Yeah?"

Mai gently shifted herself onto her elbows, and faced Natsuki, with eyes dark from tears, but yet still so alive and prosperous with life. Natsuki took in this portrait of her, how the falling sun glazed her features with warmth, and enflamed her hair and warmed her face. The particular face smiled at her.

"You're very moody, you know that?"

She had no response, but just sighed, still looking into the same amethyst eyes she had forever been looking into. "Yeah, I know that. I really do."

Mai did nothing but smile, and lay her head back down onto Natsuki's chest. She could feel her heartbeat through her eardrum, how it vibrated into the rhythm of life that beats in every person. And again, it reminded her that Natsuki was alive, that she was there, in reality with Mai. This thought remained with her, as she closed her eyes, watching as the rainbow had began to fade outside, and how the mountains went into the darkness of the night from beyond the sun.

And then Natsuki looked down at her.

'…Mai.'

_Lost, and broken._

_Hopeless, and lonely._

_I'm smiling on the outside, but hurt beneath my skin._

'Through these months, I've been through nothing but pain. I had no one, and I had nothing. I always made it look like there was nothing wrong, but inside of me, there's nothing right.'

_My eyes are fading,_

_My soul is bleeding._

_I'll try to make it seem okay, but my faith is wearing thin._

'I can feel myself falling apart under my own skin. Everyday, I can't feel anything but torment, for what's happened. You, you're the greatest thing that's happened to me. I don't know what made you decide to try and bring me in. I don't know what makes you so determined to stay with me through the suffering I put you through, or what I take out on you, as a fault for my own feelings. But Mai, you've made me see something, that I would never have seen before.'

…_So help me heal these wounds._

_They've been open for way too long._

_Help me heal this soul._

_Even though this is not your fault._

'I need you, Mai. I can't recreate myself without falling into how I was before. I can't do this on my own. I keep pushing you, and somehow, you keep pushing back. There's nothing I can do, because I don't want to do anything, anymore. I don't want to fight. I want to let you in. I know I want to…you need me too.'

_And now my mind is an open book._

She looked down, and smiled.

_And now my heart is an open wound._

She could feel her body begin to ache.

_And now my life is an open soul for all to see._

And as tears went down her cheeks, Natsuki held Mai tightly in her arms again.

_So you come along…_

_I push you away…_

_Then kick and scream for you to stay…_

'Mai…help me heal my wounds.'

…_And I need someone to help me sew them up._


	13. Black Dahlia

_A/N: Oh shit, look who updated. Yeah, I sat down last night and plowed through this chapter since I just really, REALLY, wanted to get it done. It was one of the chapters I was looking forward to writing, and after conquering my writer's block I managed to finish it. Enjoy chapter 13 of A Perfect Circle._

___Oh, P.S: This chapter is pretty emo._

* * *

**A Perfect Circle**

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* * *

**

"And you have enough food in the fridge?"

"Yes."

"And you promise to take your pain medication twice a day?"

"Of course…"

"If anything happens, you'll call me, right?"

"Yes, mother." Natsuki rolled her eyes as she leaned against the side of the kitchen doorway, permitting the entertained smile on her face to grow. She indolently watched a quite wary Mai, who stood in the open doorway leading out from the apartment. Her eyes were skeptical, as she looked at Natsuki across from her, catching in her eye any indication that should allow her to stay and take care of the young woman.

Mai breathed out heavily, unappreciative of any sarcasm at that moment. "Natsuki, give me a break. I have every right to feel a little stressed about this. You're just so used to being so aloof about everyday worries that you're not accustomed to letting things like this get to you." She shook her head slightly, noting her now moderate knowledge of her friend's completely delusional lifestyle. She let a hand quickly wisp through her bangs, only to have them fall messily, yet attractively, back onto her face to cover an eye.

Natsuki let her leg slide down from the wall, to the floor, letting her previously folded arms go to her sides. She moved her head just slightly forward, making her neck straight, and her clouded eyes were now slightly brighter in the cascading light refracting through the glass balcony door. Her sharp irises dilated as she took in Mai's normally bewildering facial attractiveness. Her thin, soft lips as they pouted just slightly-normally at the fault of Natsuki were they always pouting- , her smooth, lightly tan face that was appearing to show scant freckles over her cheeks, her incredibly illuminant amethyst eyes that allowed her face to further glow, and her bright, enflamed red hair that blared so breathtakingly and powerfully when the sun's rays fell upon it. In an unwilling, unconscious action, she could feel the bottom of her lip tug upward to a smile, but immediately did she force those muscles to succumb to her will as she kept a steadily neutral expression.

'Why do I keep doing that?' She thought to herself, as she realized she had been frequently examining Mai in the same particular way. 'Maybe I just need to get out of the damn house more. Seeing Mai's face every single day for the past three months has probably put my mind into some kind of weird isolation. Seeing only you, hearing only your voice, listening to only your words, witnessing only your actions. It almost bothers me, but then it doesn't. I wonder if I should let it bother me, because I keep thinking more about you. But I need you to leave, Mai. I was weak before, saying I wanted you here by my side, saying I needed you by my side. I need no one. I deserve no one, and I will never drag you into the hell that's torn me asunder.'

Natsuki smirked eventually, and she lazily took a few tentative steps toward the doorway, and Mai, after moving herself from the wall. She quickly jerked her neck so that cobalt locks of hair whirled behind her tone shoulder, and then brought her chilled, emerald gaze down into Mai's lavender orbs.

"Well, I like it that way. I almost feel bad for Mikoto; she has to listen to your consistent bickering and worrying all day. Now that you're finally off my ass, " she lifted her arms above herself, locked her fingers together, and performed a stretch with mock relief and satisfaction. "I get to do whatever the hell I want."

Although this routine performance of sarcasm and carelessness had found its familiarity with Mai, she still stiffened at the callous gestures Natsuki had repeatedly thrown at her. She could subtly feel the surface of her chilled skin began to quiver with what felt to be the coming of anger, and her eyes reflected churlishness.

Natsuki had sat silently, expectant of some wanton groan, pout, perhaps an argumentative counter, but when she took in the silence and paid attention to Mai's gaze, it held a kind of concealed hurt in them. Natsuki then suddenly felt a sensation of guilt, her face darkened, and she looked at the woman as if she had just performed an unspeakable felony.

"Mai, you know I'm screwing around." Although she tried a casual tone, there was an evident undertone of regret. She had realized there were rare, introspective moments where she would show her appreciation for what Mai had done for her, simultaneously taking time from her own life in sacrifice to care for her in a time of need. 'Basically, I take too much pride in being a complete and total dick instead of showing a little gratitude.' Her expression faltered, and Mai had caught this. She let up the pain of her emotions, to smile weakly. "It's fine Natsuki. I know it's hard for you to accept help willingly."

Natsuki let her regretful feelings subside and grinned crookedly, and in a short breath Mai wrapped her arms around the girl's slim waist, squeezing warily. She hadn't wanted to cause pain to any of Natsuki's sensitive wounds. "I just have to kick you in the ass every now and then so you can, is all."

The stronger girl rolled her eyes, causing her forehead to slightly wrinkle. She calmly returned the embrace to Mai, resting her chin on her shoulder. She looked down to the floor along Mai's back, and her scent infatuated her nostrils. It was vanilla, perhaps her shampoo. And then very light lavender, also possibly her shampoo as well, or maybe the smell of her laundry detergent. It could even be a cream or perfume she used. Thoughts of this permeated through her mind, until she felt a shift of movement beneath her. Mai had been trying to casually squirm out from the contact. In furtive displeasure, Natsuki released her embrace slowly, chest falling as she lowered her shoulders and let her hands sway against her sides. Mai had slowly taken her hands away, in that instant raising her head to give an apologetic smile, of which Natsuki returned, although either of them only scantly questioning what the other felt to apologize for. There was a disquieting moment of lamenting, hidden by the pride, or the regret shared between the two as it came closer, and undeniably closer, to the time that Mai would depart, and things would follow their mundane agenda once again.

Sharp eyes lifted and caught their respective opposite's, and Natsuki quickly spoke to shatter the thickness she could feel disrupting both of their nerves. "Not that you'd want to visit any more than you have to after being bottled up in this place, but, you can come over whenever you want. Just don't forget to give me a heads-up so you don't end up walking in on something gross or embarrassing."

And Natsuki had not expected the youthful fluorescence in Mai's face and broadening of her white smile at her words. A quick, harsh take of breath and Natsuki had her body encumbered by the warmth and gravity of her redhead friend, as they shared a final embrace. Sighing with a lift and fall of her chest, Natsuki grinned just before Mai lifted herself away, and the twisting and morphing sensations whirling their way into the inner depths of Natsuki's psyche had teased her soul and, again, left it cold and listless.

"So," Mai began, "I guess I'll…see you later."

One year passed in the five seconds it took Natsuki to part her dry, barren lips.

"…Yeah. See you later, Mai."

One year, again, and again.

"Thank you. For everything."

The void Natsuki predicted she would feel pulling at her had came, as Mai's footsteps echoed against the bleak walls in the shadow of her retreating form. The stairs moaned beneath the soles of her sneakers, a quieting, and then the chill of breaking night as the apartment complex door moved, opened, and closed. Natsuki held her frame, alone, she held it there with an arm to the open door, by herself. Earlier she did not believe she would let herself mind the loneliness and isolation that would come when Mai left. Surely, she hadn't intended on dwelling in the pseudo affection she discretely admired from Mai's presence forever? Their ending, slow, but toiled. Their goodbye, painful and awkward. But She did not sit with letting herself believe that it had been that way because a part of her, heated and aching inside, had wanted to reach out and pull the redhead back into her life as a second, perpetual conscience.

"I need a drink." Natsuki whispered, a bitter smile masked by the curtain of midnight hair.

Fitted, black denim jeans, a gray v-neck shirt carelessly chosen, rough leather gloves, black converse, and a black demin jacket, and Natsuki sauntered out of her apartment door, walking out of the darkness and into the apathetic glow of street lights. The chill and hungry frost welcomed her, slithering under the pores and fabrics idly sheltering her skin. She walked on, mind wandering, eyes wandering, knowing her destination and willed on merely by her feet that sifted before the subtle, distraught layers of ice. The night would carry her to the place of sanctuary for those whose minds wandered in dark places.

Her arm motioned the cold, steel door forward. Smoke whirled and sifted through the air as a secondary oxygen and congested Natsuki's head. The scent of sexual release and wandering, omnipresent alcohol permeated through the bar, in its bleak, sorrowful lighting. Shadows crawled about the walls, and those of figures shifted, dark in concealing coats, or exposed in intimate delirium. Her feet shifted, passing over the feet of others and empty spaces along the cracks of the floor, ashes, tarnishes of blood and bodily fluids tainting the soles of her shoes. Taunting, gleaming eyes watched her from everywhere, their expectant visions enveloping Natsuki's figure, her cold eyes and dark, shadowed face, and her lips that would not quiver or tremble under the eyes of those that knew her, and those that sought to intimidate her, to seduce her, to sin upon her soul and mind.

Her hand pressed upon the surface of the mahogany bar to support her weight as it shifted onto the crimson barstool, her body sifting forward and shoulders slumping. Her hair traveled over an eye, the dangerous gleam of it's retina flashing behind a veil of cobalt as she stared the bartender in the eye. His dark orbs wandered in hers shortly before breaking to direct a waiter on drinks to be served.

"Whiskey, Brett. Lots of it." Her voice drawled, throat dry and deep. His ascending, muscular figure stiffened and just as orderly pivoted to reach for the desired liquor amidst the cabinets of the devil's juices. He lifted up a glass and slid it over the surface of the bar table, and the liquor taunted the edge of the bottle just before it flowed out into the world, its flow like the pumping blood of living beings as its fluid crashed and swirled inside the glass in a dance of gold and mint before the lights. The liquor teasing the rim of the glass, Natsuki's hand grasped its cold form and brought it to herself as a king would pronounce and embrace his rightful treasures.

These were treasures of sin, of regret, and of self destruction to a fallen king, with no castle to weep his sorrows to sleep in.

The bald, hulking man behind the bar darkened his face at the raven before taking his departure and letting his life commence, and hers as well, left in an abrupt unimportance. Natsuki eyed the glass like a seductress, its golden, sparkling volume unspeakably desirable. Her hand brought it to her mouth, and the liquor brushed over her lips and glided into the hollow cage of her mouth. It was serpentine in her throat as it slithered down and burned lustily, biting her tongue and sizzling throughout her nerves, down to the fingertips. A flush passed over her face, and she smiled. Her fading eyes opened to the world, hazed by smoke and distant thoughts, pain and pleasure. Her lips parted, and released a bitter sigh.

"Kagutsuchi."

And then the night exploded.

"Fuck you, dumb bitch."

Natsuki had stared both in bewilderment and in a drunken confusion, her bloodshot, pale eyes glaring at the men who stood hostile and seething before her. A member of their circle had been groaning amidst the floor in a pathetic fashion, blood leaking from the inside of his ear and corner of his eye. The bar stilled, and an audience gathered, their eyes and devilish, disgusting smiles plastered to their dumbstruck faces for the show to begin. Natsuki had reached the peak of intoxication, lost in herself and careless to any and all, with no shame and no sorrow. Only her laughing, mocking smirk remained to be the indication of her personality, as the rest of her left to be awoken in agony and regret later on.

"Think you're a fuckin' tough bitch, huh!" A man in raggedy leather pants and vest sent his thick fist at her face, colliding violently with her chin and cheek. Her head snapped sideways with body following, sending her sprawling back with a sluggish attempt to grab hold of a bar stool. She fell back against the floor, breath escaping her chest as a groan emitted from her throat, the burning pain against her face sending up blood from under her lip to the surface. She licked the wound with a smile so thoughtless, and so terrifying. Hands brought her up to her feet, taking on a loose form as she sifted across the floor with such ease and precision that her own mind did not comprehend the natural ability of her inner soldier.

"Yeah, I do."

Palm interacted with face, the man howling as his nose shattered beneath his skin and blood splashing outward. His neck arched, and Natsuki's fatal grip upon his throat dragged him down, head slamming against the floor, and his body writhed before it fell limp, incommunicable and fallible just as humans are fated to be. Her rage was bestowed upon them in an animalistic and hysteric joy, as she drunkenly laughed and smiled and danced about with blood pouring from her wounds. Her hands showed no mercy upon the bodies they fell upon, crushing bone and destroying willpower beneath them. The other three men were thrashed violently; she had taken a closed fist to one man's face and throat, leaving his condition a bloody and mangled design. The other had his leg broken by a barstool and the side of his neck sliced with a broken beer bottle, the alcohol singing and burning inside the disrupted flesh, and he wailed pathetically amidst the pile of bodies of his comrades. Their attempts to defend their lives left her with several reopened wounds in the coming of her fresh ones, blood gliding down on side of her head. With the bar tender and all of Natsuki's audience in both newly generated awe, and familiar amusement, the soldier grinned a smile of white tainted with a subtle shade of red, blood overwhelming the taste in her mouth and painting over her teeth. Her eyes laughed maniacally in their seething dominance and drunkenness, and her vision, blurred with red and delusions, took the door as she wandered to seek the night's consolation.

_This is me without you._

A bottle of dark liquor dangled from her loose and shaking fingers, as the air wrapped around her fiery body and chilled it's burning surface while she walked the ghostly streets. Her clothing had been shredded and tattered by both hand and weapon, marked and stained by blood and alcohol across the front of her chest; the blood had dripped from her lip, down along her chin, and soaked into the front of her shirt without her care to acknowledge it. And she could not bring herself to mind it, for she had wanted to think about many things, and chose not to mind it. The alcohol, the loss of feeling and emotion allowed her not to mind it. She wanted to think about Mai; it roused in the depths of her thoughts and taunted her reality, but she could smirk and allow the desire to dissipate. She could let her mind be steady, be careless, be thoughtless, and neglect the feelings creeping beneath her skin. She came upon her home, finding her way in the shadows and blackness with nothing more than luck and basic instinct.

Clumsily she pulled the keys from the pocket of her jeans, fumbling as she worked to slide the key into the lock. It latched, twisted, and the latch loosened, the light of the hallways becoming swallowed by the darkness. Her body fell into the shadows as the barren air of her apartment swallowed her body. Her numbness deteriorated into a thickness of slow, painful awareness. Voices of pushed down memories and swallowed remorse let themselves be reborn. Natsuki wanted to think.

Natsuki wanted to think about Shizuru.

And Natsuki should have never thought about Shizuru. Not ever.

_I loved you, you made me. _

_Hate me, you gave me._

_Hate, see? It saved me,_

_And these tears are deadly._

She pushed through the darkness in rage. Invisible hands brought their wrath upon the invisible room, fumbling for the switch that brought light into the world. In her intoxicated violence, Natsuki threw the random things on the dining room table to the floor, stumbling over them sluggishly as she punched at walls that obscured her path, and tainted them with the blood of her throbbing knuckles. The skin had split and broke.

_You feel that? I ripped back, _

_Every time you tried to steal that._

_You feel bad? You feel sad? _

_I'm sorry, hell no, fuck that._

There were howls of deep anger that erupted from her throat. Cries of anguish, wishing to be masked by unemotional, raw anger, swallowed by subtle fading of consciousness and swaying thoughts that dwelled in the darkest corners of Natsuki's mind.

_It was my heart, it was my life. _

_It was my start, it was your knife._

_This strife, it dies, _

_This life and these lies._

In her violence, she threw her throbbing, lost body into the bathroom, fumbling and trembling as the light exposed her once more, in such a defeated and weakening state. Falling into the room, her hand fell upon the bath tub's handle when she thrust her arm behind the curtain, and water poured out in a steady shower. She shook, body aching and burning, dragging herself into the shower as ice cold water reigned down upon her chastised form.

_And these lungs have sung_

_This song for too long,_

_And it's true, I hurt too. _

_Remember? I loved you._

Mai stood, facing the man dark of face and intense with disdain, in her dorm room. Her eyes gleamed in the subtle darkness with nothing but the dim, fiery glow of the outside bellowing light through the windows. She felt her heart sink against her stomach, and her throat closed. Mikoto couldn't be there to save her this time. He intended to let out his wrath to the fullest extent.

Mai needed to believe he would listen to her, like he used to.

She needed to believe he could become the man he used to be.

"…Tate."

But she couldn't believe it.

And then his fist struck her stomach, and she fell to the floor on her knees. She screamed inside for someone to save her, as the breath in her chest was forced through her lips.

'Mikoto, Mikoto, help me. Anyone, help me, please.'

His frustration erupted, and his knee slammed her rib, making her body flinch hard and fall to the ground, and she wailed.

'Someone, oh god. God, help me.'

She needed someone, anyone. His foot slammed her abdomen as she coughed and yelled against the floor, tears of pain and fear streaking along her red, beautifully tragic face.

'Chie, Midori, Nao, Natsuki…'

Natsuki.

She wanted Natsuki to save her. He beat on her fragile body with a trembling fist.

'Natsuki…Natsuki…Natsuki!'

_Get her away, Natsuki._

"…NATSUKI!"

_You know the truth…don't you?_

Natsukis' hands trembled against the wall of the shower. Her body began working against the gravity as her muscles weakened and shook by the overwhelming disruption of alcohol in her veins.

_I wish I could have quit you._

_I wish I never missed you,_

_And told you that I loved you_

_Every time I fucked you._

The water poured onto Natsuki's clothes, soaking them and causing them to cling against her thin frame and chilled skin. Water dripped and streamed down her face, sifting into her hair and having it cling along her shoulders and back of her neck, and along her face. Red water dripped off of her body, trickling down strands of hair and clothing, meeting in a circle of diluted blood at her feet. It traveled in a swirling, downward spiral as it pooled down into the earth through the drain. She washed herself clean of the sin and hatred that dirtied and tainted the open wounds perpetually covering her body, never to be closed.

_The pictures that we both drew,_

_And all the shit we've been through._

_Obsessed with the thought of you,_

_The pain just grew and grew._

She hissed and ripped her hands from the wall, gripping both sides of her head, her fingers digging harshly into the sides of her temples. Her body shook uncontrollably, and she jerked herself violently, slamming her head against the wall. Each collision sent ringing through her ears, and obscured her vision with blurs of deep red. She beat her head into the wall, until the throbbing sensation and danger of losing consciousness calmed her. With her head against the wall, dripping ice cold water and blood, her bruised and beaten hand punched the hard surface, cracking and bleeding, ignoring all pain.

_How could you do this to me?_

_Look at what I made for you._

_It never was enough,_

_And the world is what I gave to you._

She stopped, only to use her more suitably functional hand to help herself stumble out of the shower and slide down the wall, blood and water trailing along and down as she sat upon the floor, limp and weak. Her heavy head toiled upward, in her bloodshot eyes she spotted a weathered, brown leather belt hanging from a towel rack just to the side of the sink. Mai had never touched it.

Natsuki reached, bleeding hand bringing down the belt.

She pathetically slid open the cabinet she sat next to, below the sink, her hand searching, fumbling slowly. She paused, then her hand retracted into the light. The thin piece of metal gleamed brilliantly beneath the bathroom light, as the liquid in it's holster calmly pooled inside.

She dropped the syringe to the floor, cursing incoherently as she ripped off her thick and heavy jacket, throwing it into the shower. She looked down at her exposed, pale and deathly ill-colored arms, twisting them so the palms reached for the ceiling, exposing where the forearm met the bicep, and where her veins protruded out and thickened along her skin. Bruises, so insignificant and just barely remaining on her skin, stared back at her.

Over time, they had healed. Slowly, they would disappear forever.

But, Natsuki lifted the belt and wrapped it around her left forearm, squeezing tightly as to cut off circulation. Her arm paled under the pressure, veins thickening and rising against the skin for the perfect access.

As Natsuki took her hand from the belt and then lifted the syringe from the floor, she intended on keeping those bruises forever.

_I used to be lovestruck,_

_Now I'm just fucked up._

_Pull up my sleeves,_

_And see the pattern of my cuts._

The metal flashed venomously beneath the light, as it's tip sunk down, like the fangs of a serpent, beneath Natsuki's skin, releasing a wave of pleasure and rush of life into her system.

_I've lost it all,_

_I fell today, _

_It's all the same._

_I'm sorry, oh,_

_I'm sorry, no._

_I've been abused._

_I feel so used,_

_Because of you._

_I'm sorry, oh,_

_I'm sorry, no._

_It seems like all we had_

_Is over now, it left to rest._

_And your tears are dried up now,_

_You just lay without a sound._

The sound of the door violently slamming echoed about the walls in the darkness, a figure drawn in the desperate light of the breaking dawn. Mai lay, limp and whimpering upon the floor, droplets of her blood seeping into the color of the vanilla carpet. Her gentle, pink lips bled over her chin, down upon the floor beneath her head, as her body coiled against itself, shielding herself from the world. She tried to hide her existence from the eyes of the entire universe, that looked down upon her, as she wailed and sobbed violently, the pressure of straining breaths pushing painfully into her beaten ribs. Her hair trailed tragically against her face, held by sweat and tears.

"..N…Nat-suk-ki…" She trembled, the fire of the rising sun enflaming her beautiful hair, and creating an emission of light around the sides of her amethyst eyes, glistening with tears and sunlight.

_Seems like all we had _

_Is over now, it left to rest._

_And my fears are over now, _

_I can leave with my head down._

Natsuki leaned back, and she felt a new sensation of momentary refuge in her soul. She didn't have to be afraid of wandering into a dark, menacing part of her mind. She let her eyes blur against the fading gleam of light above her, and the sound of running water washing down inside the bath tub echoed through her hollow thoughts. Her body succumbed to a numbness beyond pain, and beyond human emotion. There was no regret for actions here, no canvas for open wounds to shed red color.

She could smile, happily for once, as she lost consciousness of her body.

_I've lost it all,_

_I fell today, _

_It's all the same._

_I'm sorry, oh,_

_I'm sorry, no._

_I've been abused._

_I feel so used,_

_Because of you._

_I'm sorry, oh,_

_I'm sorry, no._

_I'm sorry…_

…_I'm sorry._

"…Kagutsuchi."

_I'm sorry, no._


	14. Bombshell

_A/N: I'm terribly...terribly sorry for this unnecessarily and ridiculously long hiatus. I have had so many things thrown at me all at once, that writing fanfiction was so down at the bottom of my priorities. Nonetheless, however, things have calmed down. I feel stupid because this chapter has been done for months and I was just too lazy to put it up, however the next chapter is half way complete. So with that said, I hope you can enjoy this next installment._

* * *

**A Perfect Circle**

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She had been in a room she didn't know, nor ever had seen before. She couldn't even describe the source of her ambivalent familiarity, seeing the things inside the dull, shadowed room, never seeing them before but yet knowing them, feeling comfortable. There was a powerful sense of confusion and dementia about her, understanding and acknowledging her surroundings while at the same time wanting to feel foreign in such an alien place. She couldn't feel the things around her. Her senses were absent, save for the delirium in her sight. Even as she looked down, she saw that she was apparently naked, and the cobalt sheets that swirled about her exposed body were intangible. Her hand sifted over the fabric, and her fingertips felt nothing.

A transparent feeling of warmth shrouded her before it disappeared. This made her look up, looking into passionate oceans of emerald, swirling in a mesmerizing pattern before her own eyes, as their color danced youthfully. As her gaze stayed entrapped by such a forbidden beauty, she could outline the simmering glow of pale, milky skin on the outskirts of her sight. Enticing green enshrouded her, as the pools came closer, and although the feeling was not there, she knew the woman's lips had pressed themselves upon her own. Her body would have heated dramatically, and her skin would have flushed into a shade of excited red should she be able to feel her nerves.

The two women kissed, releasing a segment of quick, deep kisses, one acknowledging the tongue of the translucent other as it drifted over the other's lips. Strangely, she felt the abrupt sensation of feeling in her body, as it began to heat intensely, feeling blood rush up through her veins into her face. She began to quicken her breathing, as the rapid beating of her heart sent the air through her lungs faster through the cage of her chest. Her eyes had been closed, and she indolently lifted them, her weakened sight taking in the subtly half-hidden eyes before her, their turquoise gleam shimmering beneath her eyelids, much like the sight of a jewel as it sat beneath the surface of the ocean, refracting its benevolent light into patterns against the ocean's floor. Having her lips separated from the other briefly, they parted, as a gasp of breath escaped her when the other's fingertips danced diligently over her stomach, grazing the flesh with incredible cautiousness and passion. She could feel herself growing hotter, and her heart thrashed about in her chest as the fingertips turned to full hands, which ran their course up her stomach and along her sides, finally taking their place upon both of her full breasts with delicate pressure.

She closed her eyes, and felt the vibrations in her throat as she released a moan, having it echo against the walls of the world. Her arms lifted themselves off of the sheets, and went to glide over the other's shoulders, though her body felt no sense of warmth, or tangible skin when she did so. The body before her seemed as if it were an apparition. She could not clearly cohere thoughts in her head to make up the visual appearance of the woman before her, nor should she describe the way it felt to touch her, how it felt to glide her fingers across the gleaming vanilla skin of her body.

She began to feel the thrill of emotion rise inside the depths of herself as the woman pressed their bodies together, the only sensation being heat that gave her a tangible emptiness in her stomach. Hands touched and coursed their way around her body, pushing her up as the other rested her upon their lap, and lips tantalizingly grazed the base of her neck. She could not conceal her rising moans, wrapping her arms around the other, seemingly lost inside the ecstatic delirium of both feeling and not being able to feel, coherent of both their souls as they rocked together, and as she moaned the name of the woman loving her, praising her name with lust and worship upon her lips…

"…Na…Natsuki…"

Mai snapped up in a violent manner, in a blurring obscurity of sheets, until she sat up, slouching over. She sat catatonically, eyes emptily gazing directly ahead into the shadowed wall across the room, the light of the rising sun seeking darkness on the wall through intervals of the closed shades. It was the unusually still and inert expression one made when suddenly disrupted from dreaming. Her body calmed itself as her muscles relaxed, her whole figure seeming to wane. Her tight shirt had ridden up her stomach until it wrinkled up just beneath her chest. The blankets lay abandoned and distorted on the floor, messily hanging off the edge of the bed. And Mai remained in this mentally absent state, until her mind had finally revitalized from sleep, and her eyes glimmered as they focused themselves.

"…Oh…god…" She whispered, having it come out more as a hoarse groan than anything. Her hand came up, arm aching lethargically as her fingers ran down messily fumbled strands of her copper hair and dropped back into her lap. Her face wrinkled in a distortion of emotion momentarily, lips parted as if in exasperation. "I just…I, I just…what?"

She had brought both hands up, and stared hard into their palms as they moved up toward her face. She hadn't exactly been sure what to do with them, having moved them simply in a state of mental hysteria. Her eyes blinked hard, before enveloping her face in her hands, fingertips just barely grazing into the sides of her cheeks and forehead.

"No, no, no, no, no, no…" She dropped her hands, yelling at the wall. "Fuck, no!"

Something moved harshly in the corner of her eye, and Mai jerked her head to see Mikoto, who had been hugging her blankets against her body while staring at Mai with a tired, yet startled expression.

"Mai…?" She groaned, just barely audible, her eyes still an enticingly piercing gold, even after just being abruptly startled awake.

Mai's apologetic eyes settled unto her roommate, turning her torso just slightly which made part of her shirt fall. "Sorry, Mikoto, I had a…weird dream." She mumbled, assuming Mikoto would figure drowsiness was the cause of her mumbling.

The feral teen watched her companion idly, before she suddenly gave an indifferent expression, and then cocked her head as if she were a confused animal. "Mai?"

"Y-Yes?" She asked, forcibly talking over the crack in her voice she got from that strange, accusing look she was experiencing from her simple, yet insightful friend.

Mikoto lingered in a brief pause, before asking, "Why's your face look like it's burning up?"

Mai stiffened visibly, before a hand made its way up to her cheek, and she could feel the heat that radiated off of her skin and onto her fingertips. She raised the other hand, also feeling as both her palms took in the fire in her skin. She faltered with her hands as she brought them down, looking into the endless pools of the sheets around her body with stricken, lavender eyes. 'I'm still flushed from the dream…I was so hot…' She could not repress the thoughts that circulated through her mind at such a rapid pace, picturing Natsuki cradling her in lap, caressing her naked body, allowing herself to moan the woman's name in ecstatic pleasure…

"J-Jesus Christ!" She barreled her face down into her palms and could practically feel sweat accumulate on her forehead beneath her bangs, her entire body beginning to feel enflamed with embarrassment. 'What the hell…what is wrong with me…why?'

Mikoto flinched, then raised her golden eyes back onto Mai with even more risen confusion. "Mai, what's wrong?" She asked sternly, tone laced with passionate care for the rust haired woman.

Mai sighed, dropping her hands inertly against the bed before arching her neck; her hair attractively poured down unto one side of her face, concealing an amethyst jewel. "Nothing's wrong, Mikoto, really." She droned, staring up toward the ceiling and all its ordinary whiteness.

There was a stiffness in the air, Mikoto feeling emotion of both anger and sympathy grip her heart. "Did you, have a bad dream about Tate, or something?" She huddled the blankets against herself.

Mai suddenly lost the thoughts of the previous dream, others quickly filling her constantly swarming head. She slowly brought her face down, eyes resting onto her form as her legs coiled beneath her, exposed by her shorts colored in robin's egg blue. Her eyes were empty, and bitterly searching, as their large irises looked over the fresh cuts, bruises, and other chasms that tainted the soft and subtly tanned skin of her body. The marks had made her heart flinch, each strike of violence upon her flesh appearing like a black streak destroying the once serene surface of an untouched canvas. Tentative fingers pressed over each lesion, each grisly abrasion along the sides of her calves and thighs. She brought one of her arms forward, exposed through the strap of her tank top, to also look over deeply embedded lacerations into her arms; red scrapes, deep purple imprints and punctured, open areas made each touch send a quick, electrical surge of pain into her nerves. She had no doubt the same wounds would be inflicted along her stomach and back as well. She had been prone to seeing them reflect back at her with dark acknowledgment in the mirror, prior to their creation the night before, as if it were mundane. As each finger precariously waved over each disrupted area of her arm, her body flinched, twitching sketchily, and her eyes had dilated in the moments her body felt pain with both fear and pure, uncensored hatred.

Mikoto had watched, but while patient and silent did a violent emission of dark and raging thoughts rise up in her mind, hidden behind her eyes, that remained gleaming with a passionate and powerful care as they watched every mark send shrills of hurt and pain through her companion's beautifully torn body. Even so ruined and fouled, Mai was always beautiful. Her willful persona and maturity allowed her aura to shimmer perpetually, for her mind did not let her eyes lose their incredible, unique glimmer. And, she had been rather blessed with such a body that, while it had grown admirable and an envy to some, also was carried with infallible dignity, and hid its darkness and its pain behind a powerful swaying of hips and locking of legs. Contaminations, bruises and the like, were merely scratching the surface, it had appeared. They could not damage the will that lie under the skin of such an untamed and young bombshell.

Her heart is what brought such a bombshell persona crumbling down into ashes.

Physical wounds left their mark on the surface, to heal and rid their worth from the naked eye and the vacant mind. Their value, their significance, lingered down through the depths of her blood, traveled through her veins and, like a leech, drained the life out of her soul from the inside out. Each scar left by the past, was etched into her heart, like the engravings of two lovers' names into the surface of a tree. They would remain there, forever plaguing and mocking her insides, until her body grew weak and deprived of life, and withered down into the earth. Her demons would take their respective graves by her side.

Such as read in the fables of romance, until death do they part.

"Mai." Mikoto deadpanned, worry aching in her throat.

Mai's neck snapped upward, and her gaze met with the younger one. Her eyes flickered with distraught emotions before they were forced to settle with a calm countenance.

"It's alright Mikoto, " Her voiced poured with such an angelic carefulness that Mikoto had visibly dropped all tension in her muscles. "I didn't dream about Tate. You don't need to worry about him."

"Not worry about him my ass!" She practically yelled in retort, eyes igniting passionately.

"Language." Mai deadpanned, sighing tiredly, her muscle seeming to throb rhythmically while she tried to hide her exhausted state.

"No, I can't stand this bullshit, Mai."

The copper haired woman cringed visibly, but remained silent.

"I can't…understand," Mikoto began, eyes burning into the nothingness before her to search for the words in a phantasmal void. "I can't understand how you let him do that to you. How you let him use you like that. And when he doesn't get his way, he abuses you, does this" she designated an elongated bruise along Mai's arm, "to you, and yet in the mix of things you somehow see it as your fault and let him get away with it. You just can't see how he's changed you, Mai! How it hurts to watch and stand by to let Tate ruin you and your life, just because as a friend, I have to do as you want me to. I can't…" She brought her bottom lip to her mouth and bit down harshly, eyes piercing Mai's lavender orbs with blistering suns before looking down. "I can't understand it at all."

"You sound just like Natsuki, you know." It hadn't sounded bitter, yet it held some kind of subliminal coldness to it coming out of Mai's mouth almost immediately after Mikoto paused. But warmth spread through her sadly played smile, and brought up a playful gleam in her eyes. "She would probably say the exact same thing, albeit a bit more animatedly."

After a moment, Mai felt herself grow hesitant under the condescending gaze of Mikoto, who seemed expectant and very impassive.

"I'm telling her."

"You are not telling her, actually." Mai bit quickly, brow furrowing.

"Then you do it. It's Tate's death wish either way, and you know it."

"Which is why Natsuki will not know," Mai then slowly, and it appeared, painfully, lifted herself from the bed as her bones and muscles ached with each contraction of her limbs. "and I will do my best to work out my issues with Tate." She took a moment of silence, and then found the will to stare into Mikoto's eyes. "This is our problem, therefore it's our responsibility to take care of it, and no one else's."

Mikoto knew she hadn't been close to giving a persuading word during their argument, so she sighed, body slumping childishly against the covers she had huddled into herself as her eyes turned away into a pout. "Whatever, if I sound like Natsuki, that must mean I sound like the smart and logical one in this conversation."

Mai couldn't help but giggle lightly as that, "Yes, Natsuki would be the one to constantly restate her logical way of thinking about things." She looked up as she began walking away, making for the bedroom door. She stopped as her hand pressed on the side of the doorway, body twisted as she turned so her eyes lied on Mikoto's unimpressed glare. "I'm going to go see her, to get a few things I left there, and to check up on her."

The feral ex-HiME quirked an eye, perplexed. "You're going there today?"

"Yes. Why?" Mai questioned hesitantly.

"What are you going to tell her when she sees all of those marks?" She paused, face seeming to darken. "You can't hide them all."

Mai's eyes seemed to have let a crack slip over the glass wall they shielded their true emotions from, though she looked away when the flash of guilt washed over them. "I'll…think of something."

"You're going to lie to her, then?" Mikoto interrogated, in a condescending manner.

She couldn't see the fiery woman's bitter smile. "We're HiME, Mikoto. Lying is the truth."

When Natsuki had woken up, she had awoken to the sight of her bathroom looming over her. The lights that blistered above the sink cabinet burned into her eyes powerfully, causing a strange, dry grumble in her throat and her head to jerk sideways. She turned her gaze onto the shower, which she could see she had torn down the curtain as it lay sprawled upon the floor, and that the shower was still running. There were streaks across the opposing wall, seeming to have dried into a dark copper and to have once been her own blood. She saw through bloodshot eyes, how it trailed from the sides of the walls, down the side of the bath tub and stained scant areas of the floor and bathroom counter. Drowsily, she drooped her head down at herself, and she saw how her shirt had been torn and mangled, and a deep crimson stain of her blood dried upon the front of her shirt.

"…Fuck…I like this shirt…" Her voice broke as she spoke, almost in a strangled whisper. But, looking over herself, emerald eyes stared strangely as she looked to see her right arm, bent upwards, with the needle of a syringe still embedded into her arm as it sat there, empty, held by pressure of muscle and skin. She sighed harshly after a moment, and lethargically lifted her other arm, removing the syringe slowly out from her flesh. As she went to lift the other arm, she suddenly jerked her body in a fit of pain, as her nerves throbbed down her hand and through her arm, up to the shoulder and side of her chest. The syringe flew across the bloodied bathroom floor as she gripped her arm, desperately applying pressure to withhold such throbbing pain from going through her. She looked back down, to see that blood absolutely soaked her hand, and that it coursed with pain, and her fingers were slightly curling as if the hand were paralyzed. Even after she cleansed herself in the shower, blood still poured from the open wounds in her hand, along her knuckles. While the damage wasn't physically obvious, only several scrapes showing, the bone inside felt severely mangled, and each time she made a diligent attempt to move her limb, it sent out a warning of pulsating pain shooting through her nerves.

Silently, she lay in indecision. Then she knew she had to get herself off from the floor. She brought her functioning hand to the floor, using it to lift herself. Fire erupted in the muscles that awoke in her movements, causing her to hiss through gridded teeth, the skin along the bridge of her nose to wrinkle, and her brow to lean in harshly. Pressure applied to the arms and legs sent numbing waves through them, only subsiding when she managed to stumble to her full height. Her hand supported her against the counter while she adjusted her unfocused sense of clarity. She saw her jacket sprawled about on the bottom of the bath, and the water had been soaking it all night. Natsuki sighed, and she bent over the side of the tub in order to turn off the shower, and the water had slowed until it dripped idly. She grasped the black denim jacket from the floor of the bath, adjusting to how the water weighed it down. It dripped incessantly, and she would have rung it out should she be able to use her other hand. The raven grumbled, throwing the jacket into the sink as water fell upon the floor. Ceasing the perpetual sound of the shower, she bent over the sink, head hung lethargically between her shoulders.

"I need to go to church or something…" Natsuki grumbled, bringing up her head in order to face the monstrosity of her reflection through the mirror. Her face had been grimy and carried a gleaming film of sweat, of which her ratty, dark hair clung to. Her eyes dimmed listlessly, like jewels forgotten and corroded through sand and storms. They were outlined in a painful, protruding red and then cradled in a tired purple of which drawled beneath her eye sockets. Gliding a finger over her face, she felt the grimness of her skin, the pigments of blood and sweat. She descended her fingers to the ridge of the sink, letting the languid gaze of her reflection burn its impenetrable impression into her subconscious.

'…Why did I dream of you?'

Her body numbed as her eyes did not leave their place, searching through the whirling pools of lilac that presented themselves to her. What was surrounding her had consisted of a crimson warmth, and the indistinct room she had found herself in seemed to dully glow in an ardent red. The sun's beams danced over the shadows and mounds of the auburn sheets, sifting over Natsuki's movements as she shifted her body beneath the blankets that enveloped her. She could not find the will to force her eyes away from the passionate duel they found themselves entrapped. The golden light outshined the maroon curtains, filling the pores along Natsuki's nakedness with warmth.

Mai walked closer to Natsuki from the end of the bed, and her form leaned against the ripples of her white gown, that glided over her body as a silken shroud. Lines in the fabric shaped themselves over the subtle protrusions and the forms of her curves. Bringing one leg forward accented the opposite hip as it locked seductively. Her hands hung and wavered idly by her sides, and her face, stimulated by the glow of shimmering copper hair, hung with compelling style. And her gaze, completely and enticingly powerful and dramatic, was set on Natsuki.

Natsuki sat, ensnared by beauty and weighed down by the seduction that allured brilliantly from Mai's body.

_There's something about the way she's moving close to me…_

That angelic gown that had perfectly shaped itself over the woman's body coiled around the exposed curves, as Mai lifted her hands, fingers sliding through the straps over her shoulders and letting them slip over her skin. The moments passed in slow, climactic moments of sexual anticipation. The gown fell around her body, slowly and graciously, like the wings fallen from an angel. Each portion of Mai's body that gave itself to the world to see, were deep and daunting sins that Natsuki's eyes had indulged in, and she felt herself growing ecstatic with bewilderment at the sight of such a body.

Mai smiled the smile that could have captivated the hearts of a thousand men.

And she had the body that could captivate the wants of even more.

Her body was bare against the world now, completely free, and each movement could be detailed through every motion and rhythm as she pressed her knee upon the end of the bed, and brought herself forward. Her chest hung enticingly between her arms, of which their hands dug into the waves of sheets. She leaned in like that of an experienced seductress toward Natsuki, whose breath had lost itself in the heated moments that had passed between the two bodies drawing closer.

_There's something about the way she's undressing herself for me…_

When Mai lifted her head and brought her lips over Natsuki's own, the soldier did not close her eyes. She let them drift open, gleaming a shade of rejuvenated viridian, taking in the beauty that engulfed her vision, wanting to be consumed by such a deity that pressed intangible lips to her own in a wanting passion.

Natsuki removed her stare from the imitating eyes of the mirror, turned with her back to the sink, and gawked at the aftermath of the violence and wrath she bestowed on her unsuspecting bathroom in a drunken stupor the previous night.

She dragged a hand down along her face. "God, have mercy on my soul…I don't need it anymore…"

Midday's frozen winds howled against Mai's frame as she desperately bundled herself in the shelter of her brown woven coat. Her eyes settled on the quickly transpiring digital lines of a rising price on the gas pump she had been using, while holding the end of the pump to her sedan with a gloved hand. She used the other functional hand to click at her phone, moving downward on the screen until came up an infamous name to her tongue.

Natsuki.

Her breath stormed through the lifeless air with liberation of life in otherwise barren cold, waiting for the expectant voice to pick up. It had eventually.

"_Hello_?" A voice broke the silence amidst muffled static.

"Natsuki. Hey." Mai subconsciously smiled, leaning against her car door.

"_Hey. What's up Mai?_" The tone was calm, a bit lethargic, and mellow.

"Pumping gas. I was, calling to ask about my things."

"_Oh yeah, right. What about it_?"

"I was just wondering…if maybe I could come by today to get it? I don't want to just leave it there taking up space."

The silence waited, until Natsuki finally said, "_Oh hey, don't worry about it, it's really not bothering me y'know. It's just some clothes and books and stuff, right?_"

"Well, yeah, pretty much, I just feel like I'll get lazy and forget about it if I don't get it soon, you know?"

"_I honestly don't see that happening. You're much too prudent for mortal flaws._" Natsuki bit sardonically.

And Mai laughed, and her smile gleamed in whiteness. "I really wish I could see your point-of-view on this goddess-like demeanor you've made up for me. I sound like a pretty majestic person."

"_I only see you for the perfect little princess you make yourself up to be._"

"…Shut up."

A cool laugh echoed on the line. "_Oh, getting snappy 'cause I made a point?_"

"Hmmm…I like you better when you're dim-witted." The redhead cooed.

She leaned her body back against the crisp metal of the car, listening to the monotonous crackle and murmur against her ear.

"_Yeah, you made your point. Make sure to knock first, eh?_"

"Maybe."

The connection dispatched, and that was all.

She fixated the pump back into it's holster, closed her tank cover and quickly retreated from the cold into her car. Knuckles were white and wrapped forcefully around the steering wheel at 2 and 10 o'clock as she rolled into the street. Dim, restless eyes took repetitive takes into the rear-view mirror only to be reciprocated with an equal gaze.

It was as if she had the devil sleeping in her backseat, though she wasn't so fortunate.


	15. Demonology and Heartache

_A/N: I actually had planned for this to be longer, but decided to break off the second half of this into another chapter, considering it will break off into another plot point. I'll be happy to announce this is where I plan to have some more "interesting" things start happening. I did warn you of the calm before the storm, after all. Well, you're about to meet the eye._

_Please enjoy, and as always, sorry about the wait._

**A Perfect Circle**

* * *

_"You claim to know a thing or two about heartache,_

_And what it's like, to have your insides pulled out._

…_I need no reminders…_

…_I'll forget the past, and lay it to rest."_

* * *

"So…" Mai began, gaze lost into her drink before it flickered unto Natsuki's expression. "How are you feeling this morning?"

"As good as I can be." She rubbed a finger along the side of the warm cup in her hands.

Mai nodded. "Well, I suppose that's better than I expected. I know you're no good at self-preservation after all." She grinned and looked down, not waiting for an answer. "Thanks for packing my things, by the way."

"Hey," She snapped belatedly, having been staring into her drink. "How did this turn from 'get your shit and leave' to 'let's have a lovely unannounced tea party in my living room'?"

Looking up, Mai relaxed. "Oh, you don't enjoy my company?" She asked, feigning surprise.

"Don't give me that." She put down her cup, with surplus force, and focused those already blazing eyes onto Mai's dramatic face. Even for her, it was too early to be met with such a passionate glare. "I've enjoyed your damn company for a few months, now. You're treating me like a kid on her first sleep-over. A little overbearing, don't you think?"

"I thought that's what was expected of me?" she questioned, taking a sip of coffee as the steam danced across her eyes.

"Well, yes, you're not hard to predict." Natsuki deadpanned.

"Then it's fine, isn't' it?" She quipped. "I only make sure to do what is expected of me. Naturally I'd be concerned even on your first night alone. But I see you're not dead, or at most, in some horrid condition, so I can rest a little easier."

"How ecstatic to know you can sleep at night, now." Natsuki grimaced, in a cute way. And it made Mai smile, as Natsuki's many facial expressions usually did.

"But, come on," she continued. "isn't' this kind of attention a little superfluous?"

"Does it honestly bother you that much?" Mai questioned, a little more serious than previously.

"Not the point." Natsuki bit. "I know you, and I know you have a life. So why waste it babying me when I'm obviously fine as I am? It's not like I need any kind of supervision when I can walk and use my limbs correctly now."

Mai didn't make for an answer right away. She moved her drink down to the table slowly, as if to not make her nervousness obvious, and she placed a strand of hair behind her ear. "Well," she began, in a quiet voice. Natsuki sifted a portion of her hair through her fingers and watched Mai with a crooked brow.

"Well…?" She prodded, seeing that Mai felt too distraught and rampant with thought to look her in the eye. Her violet orbs looked mainly to the floor.

"It's not as simple as worrying.." She commented softly, hands folded in her lap. "It's more than that."

"What's more, then?" Natsuki said in a cool, measured voice. Mai felt idiotic for the simplicity of the whole thing, and how trivial it was, yet she couldn't opt the courage to say it. Perhaps it was the way that Natsuki was constantly interrogating even in petty conversation. Her tense form and firm expression rarely left compromise for a softer complexion. Of course, no combination was more deadly than the ice in her eyes that complimented her frosted voice. Mai thought it ironic; her features gave off such a cold demeanor, yet Natsuki herself was a being full of passion. She did not perform an action without the complications of others being affected, and each word she spoke animatedly and full of character. And yet, Mai felt stiff there, a mannequin left to be bare in the eyes of the beholder. And when she composed enough wit to speak, those crystalline words would shut her down.

'How can I speak, when your icy tone sends chills through my spine?'

"I do have a life, though it isn't as glamorous as you make it seem." She hesitated, an earnestness in her voice. "You act as if your presence isn't worth my time."

"Not so much that, but I'm sure Mikoto has been reeling up the walls since you came home, and Tate's probably excited to have time back with you."

Mai visibly flinched.

Natsuki blinked. She settled her elbows on her thighs, leaning forward. "You okay over there-"

"I miss you." Mai snapped her head up, blazing locks sliding across her face, and her large eyes looked into Natsuki's, whose were now of equal surprise.

"I…" her voice disappeared in her lungs. Those eyes were so intense with emotion she could feel frost accumulating on her fingertips. "I'm sorry." She managed to whimper. Her face glowed with a heated blush.

Natsuki, speechless until then, relaxed her gaze, as well as her figure. "Miss me?" she questioned.

Mai breathed heavily through her nostrils, momentarily blinking her eyes shut. "I haven't seen you for over a year, Natsuki. No words were spoken. We never acknowledged each other. You could have been dead if I didn't know any better." Her last words were quiet, repressed.

There was a distance in Natsuki's gaze now. The cobalt beauty was a great sight when in thought. She leaned up, straightening her back. "I know." she answered softly. "I know…"

Mai moved her head up, eyes studying the other's wandering expression. "Is that all?"

"No." she looked at Mai, hesitantly, and lowered her head to see into her now cooling coffee. Black and bland. "After everything that happened… honestly, I needed closure to know it was all real. Not some kind of conjured up, fucked up hallucination. We killed things that shouldn't be alive, and we had destructive power that could take over the whole damn world. I killed people…" she was growing in distance, talking into the floor rather than anyone. "I had things done to me, not even my worst enemy should have to go through. And you, Mai." Her head lifted. Her eyes were stone cold. "You watched the people you loved die around you. And even with a dragon at your call, you were helpless."

Mai was stiff, her back was painfully straight. She returned Natsuki's gaze, and looked deep into them. She wanted to search them, to pick out and analyze every constellation that composed them, and the pain built into each.

"That's because, when you think about it, power and violence are more hopeless than love and death." she picked up her drink in both hands, the luke warm sweetness flowing through her throat. She lowered it and sighed. "Sacrificing the lives of others in vain doesn't bring back what's been lost. It's not something anyone should have to experience, yet it's something that can only be truly understood when having been afflicted by it. It's a curse and a life lesson, all tied in one sick contradictory story."

"That may be true," Natsuki responded. Taking a gaze to the side and back. "but, my point is that I didn't want any kinds of interaction until I was sure I wasn't wrong in the head. Having everyone around me would just make it harder to come to terms. Plus, you know me. I'm not a people person."

"Annual isolation is an overstatement for not being a people person." Mai said pointedly. "It was partially my fault as well. I could have come. I could have made the effort to make contact, but…I suppose that, I needed my own kind of closure. You were the first person to be involved with me in it. You told me not to go to Fuuka, that I'd die. And that I should go home and stay away forever."

"You should have."

"I could have."

"Yet you didn't." Natsuki answered sharply.

"And if I had, we wouldn't be friends, speaking right now. For both reasons that we would have died, and that I would have taken your word, and we would have gone our separate ways and nothing more." Mai had that half-serious, half-humored grin wryly etched into her lips. Natsuki found it amusing, and before she found herself thinking it mesmerizing, she returned back to violet eyes. Thoughts were best unscrambled and focused at this point. However, the point Mai had made left nothing to be said.

She huffed loudly, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back. "You've made your point."

Mai's eyes went up in surprise. "To be honest, I'm surprised you would let it end there."

"'To be honest', I don't give a damn about the whole thing anymore." Natsuki quipped. "I've come to terms with what's happened. Things are as they are now, and I can't change it, so I don't see the point in questioning it."

Mai nodded, understanding Natsuki's logic. Though she would be prodding for more of her explanation for things in later time, she was pleased with the current situation. Natsuki was well and fine in front of her, partaking in normal conversation - well, normal in the circumstances of a HiME - and simply being Natsuki. It was the simplicity of the matter that allowed Mai to smile, knowing that she could relish in the little things once more in her life. Though the significance of those feelings were so much greater in force than what she let on.

"Despite all of that, I really missed you."

Natsuki would have reciprocated the same words if she hadn't been Natsuki. So, in her own exertions of affection, she leaned back casually with a careless gaze out the sliding door, eyes reflecting the afternoon sun. "Mmh." she acknowledged with a grunt. And to others it would be stale and rude, but to Mai, it was a special and adorable way that Natsuki coded for "I missed you too".

"Good." Her smile thinned, and lilac eyes floated to the floor. "Because…"

Natsuki felt the anxiety fill the space between them. Her vibrant gaze looked from the window to Mai, who dared not look at her in the eye.

"Everything seems so…different. Without you, I mean." She shuffled awkwardly, and finished her sentence in a haste.

A quirk of the brow on the bluenette's behalf.

And was Mai…_flustered?_ Someone whose countenance rarely matched a word that lacked sophistication, or stubbornness, or grace, but yet the warmth of her blood seemed to flood her face despite her own powerful endeavor to keep cool.

"Well. It _seemed _different. Now that we've… you know.. Gotten in touch.. A lot of things feel like they're…" She hesitated for a moment, gently lifting her softly glazed eyes of violet to test a cold shield of emerald glass. "…falling into place."

It had been Natsuki's turn to react in a way utterly out of character. And it was not only the gesture of their eyes locking, but the _way _in which their subtlety was almost mischievous and… even taunting. As if they crawled up Natsuki's body, slowly, drawing in every detail in careful diligence, creeping like a serpent over her skin, or the chilling sensation of ice floating and melting along the surface and leaving goose-flesh…

'Or just like the underestimated, playful stare of a quietly sexual woman.'

It was unlike their usual exchanges, because the way it pulled harder on the strings of her hidden conscience, that revelation between her '_id' _and her '_ego' _that she deliberately kept secret and torn, became painfully intertwined. So harshly that she felt the violent ripple in her chest of her heart skipping a beat, and her breath stopped, quickly and suddenly, lips barely peered apart, and the glass glimmering over her eyes smashing into glinting pieces, leaving nothing but bleak vulnerability, nakedness, and exposure.

In those completely different moments, she felt the fantastical memories of her dream nearly wash over her, feeling it as if in reality.

Mai was quick to see the drastically flushed complexion of Natsuki, that abruptly excited and startled tenseness, and most astonishingly, the exposure of her eyes. It was as if when Natsuki allowed the exceptional occasion of letting down her guard, that her every feelings and secrets were written in words in the bright green pools. Though she had no idea if this was possible for anyone else to realize, because she considered that maybe,

'…Just maybe, only I can see her when she's like this. Only I can expose her, and make her feel like this. But, I wonder…is it really a good thing?'

Although it felt like time had slowed between them, these moments were behind them in seconds, as Natsuki hunched over, elbows resting on her knees as she jerked her head to the side, gazing out to see the darkening purple clouds. Mai's eyes lingered only for a short while after.

"What do you mean…falling into place?"

Mai felt startled. A low, hard voice ripping into the quiet.

"Well…" she began shakily, "Just that, things feel a little more like they used to. I suppose you don't feel it, and I'm not saying things are better in reverse progress, but it never felt quite right not seeing everyone, mainly you, after what had happened. I've stopped having the strange dreams-"

She stopped abruptly, and she audibly gasped. Natsuki slowly tore her gaze from the window to Mai, who she could see, was doing something quite unexpected.

"Mai…" she began, a bit awkwardly at first, "…you're blushing."

She was indeed blushing. She actually could not have managed to carry any more of a resemblance to someone who looked like they had just been "caught in the act". She bit the bottom of her lip, her brows furrowed together to produce a cute wrinkle in her forehead, and a soft pink hue spread along her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. The cause of this, was that she realized that it was true the dreams of past destruction were fading from her mind.

What she also realized, is that they were being replaced by dreams of Natsuki taking her.

She squeezed her thighs tightly in embarrassment, unseen by Natsuki who's view became obscured by the table. However, she looked up quickly, not wanting the bluenette to grow any more suspicious.

"I just..uhm.. I need to use the bathroom." And with that, shot up from the couch, and very quickly strutted past Natsuki, and toward the bathroom in the hallway. Natsuki jerked her body to the side, twisting her torso and craning her neck to watch Mai with wide, intense eyes. While still taken aback by Mai's outburst, she was more concerned for where she was going.

Back to Natsuki, Mai set her hand on the knob of the bathroom door, twisted her wrist and unlatched the lock, opening the door in a fluid motion.

To a normal bathroom.

Natsuki stared cautiously for several more seconds, until she saw the door shut behind Mai, and she sighed, sinking into the cushion and running her fingers through her long, dark locks.

'You'll notice something eventually, I've accepted this. I'll only know what exactly, when you confront me.'

Mai herself stood in front of the bathroom mirror, hands leaning against the countertop and gazing idly at her reflection. Pale skin, and tiring violet eyes under a mess of deep red hair. The blush in her complexion faded slowly, and she let out a tense breath.

"I probably could have just said any excuse, and she would have been convinced." The red-head grumbled, rushing fingers through her bangs. She stared back at herself, deeply fighting the remembrance that seduced her conscious with disturbing ease.

'It's Natsuki for Gods' sake. Get a hold of yourself.' She narrowed her gaze, as if competing for her dominance with her own self, though somehow she quickly lost her own battle. 'I can't be this way if I want to talk about…_anything, _substantial. I told Mikoto I wouldn't say anything to her about Tate, though I wonder if I'm only idling rather than avoiding the topic completely. I want to stay by her, but if I do, my strongest walls wouldn't be enough to hide myself from her. She's much too intense and perceptive. It's always been that way with Natsuki. Our individual secrets become one another's, we share our separate burdens. We cannot call the other selfish for it because we both carry heavy situations that just balance out evenly in the end.'

She tentatively motioned down to her arm, for which she rolled up the sleeve. Her brow reeled inward at the sudden tension in her muscles. The deep, purple laceration along her forearm stared back at her like the enflamed fissure of hell.

'These are secrets I can't keep from her, even if I wanted to. She could even know already, and is buying for the best opportunity to catch me off guard. I can read her, but only so far until I reach the level of her complexity that I just don't understand. How can one person be so contradictory? Cold, yet heated with vigor? I'm ashamed to feel like I've only just met her after knowing her for this long. And these dreams. I don't understand them, and it's really hard for me to figure out if I even want to understand.' she then smirked to herself, darkly. 'This better not be some sick joke of my subconscious. It could also be feelings, buried deep inside of me that even I have yet to realize, coming out for me to finally witness…'

Her hands pressed hard into the surface of the marble. Her eyes stared dully into the swirling abyss of the drain.

'I don't feel that way for Natsuki.'

…_do I?_

In some sort of reflex, she slapped herself across the cheek. Harder than anticipated. After a moment of numbness, the burn enflamed her face, and she hissed through her teeth as she bent her neck down and waited for the pain to calm. Looking up, the strike embed a pink hue into the left side of her face, and she jerked her head as if to shake the agitation from her. Flustered and a bit discombobulated now, she harshly gripped the edge of the countertop with her fingers and stared hard into the reflection of her own eyes. Her body writhed with a new alertness as the sting calmed, the redness of the mark gradating into her complexion. This was when her intensive amethyst gaze fell on the reflection of the leather belt in the lower corner of the mirror.

She turned, so her body faced the real object as it hung listlessly over the towel rail beside the sink. Something, a gravitational force, pulled at her, worked her limbs from the construction of her veins and tissue, as if her mind were disregarded for her actions. Like a toy, her arm lifted against its will and she rested her fingertips against the texture of the belt. It was soft, aged by reckless use. She then pressed the material betwixt her index and thumb, grinding it into her flesh. The article was strained and weak. She stared at the object, oddly infatuated with it, and then she gripped around it and pulled it from the rail, bringing it closer. Violet glowed darkly as it peered along the marks of the belt's exterior, one hand holding it up as the other trailed tentative fingers along, feeling every wear and abrasion.

There had been a sudden indentation in the material as Mai's fingers passed over it. She saw that a particular part of the belt had been especially worn, more brittle and loose. Her eyes stared - no - they _burned_ into the spot there. There were engravings of letters, that the flesh of her fingers moved over and spelled out slowly.

_K._

_I._

_Y._

_O._

_H._

_I._

_M._

_E._

It felt as if the fragile skin burned on her hands as she whispered the serpent's name through broken lips. Her eyes were trapped in the snare of that name, etched so pristinely, so precisely.

_Am I being too cryptic?_

'…You are so unaffectionate…so insecure…' Mai's mind droned, and then her arms moved, precariously. She brought her hand to the base of the belt, where the buckle dimly gleamed. It was as if it were mechanical, in the way that the leather morphed to her hand's will. She slid the object over her arm then. As it traveled over her, her flesh pricked and went cold. It felt like a snake's skin, shrill and merciless, winding over the form of it's prey.

_Am I being too obscure?_

'…Is this the feeling you always have, as well? All of the fear, all of the regrets of past mistakes? Do you try to push it away and pretend?' She let the sickening feeling of the leather slide over her chilling skin, and began to pull it around her bicep. The snake had began to slither around its dying feed. Her gaze only shifted to look at the equally disruptive sight of her scars.

'Will there ever come a day when we put these things behind us? I feel sick and hypocritical for asking you for your secrets, when I don't possess the courage to expose my own. These plagues upon my body mean nothing compared to the numbing pain of coldness that has separated you and I. I am seeing this obtuse reality for what it is. Like you, I'm actually looking at things in their barest form, instead of how they can be changed. We're here, both stuck at an interrupted revolution in time, because neither of us have the will to push forward.'

_The darkness dancing across your face_

'The glass. I feel it slipping, pushing forward, breaking. Splitting in two.'

_And when the blackness veils, your eyes, in pain. _

She snapped the buckle in place, the leather passing through it's fastening. The impression of the leather went against her arm as if it had been molded to the shape.

She pulled hard. The muscle weakened, and the blue veins writhed up beneath her skin, suffocating.

The serpent coils and traps their kill. The prey struggles, fighting, glowing blue, then succumbs to death.

'…I see it, every time. I see the darkness in your eyes. When I look in the mirror, I see the darkness of mine. It's that dull whirl of obscurity that surrounds our gaze.' A bitter smile. 'There's no masks now, only ruses. Deceptions, blank stares and empty threats that keep us pushing and pulling…I feel completely idiotic for not recognizing the signs. Even if Youko hinted at the possibility, I avoided it like a disease.'

But she watched in a mild horror, even though her expression was catatonic, as her arm paled white like death.

'But this is what you do. This is your demonology at work.'

A quick intake and heave of breath. Mai bit her bottom lip.

'…You're an idiot. You're a _fucking idiot.'_

Her grip weakened. The predator relaxes its muscles, loosening its grip of death.

'It didn't have to come to this…You never had to engulf yourself in something you couldn't pull yourself out of. Now you're sinking in this abyss of yourself and drowning in it, with all of the things you never said. I told you to come to me. I told you to give yourself to me, and to be careful. Is this your idea of careful, Natsuki?'

She felt it. The coming of waves in her heart, that precipitated heat into her body. The feeling of raw anger, utter sadness, and…

"…Irrevocable love." she whispered, with a dreadfully bitter and sorrowful smile on her face. "Shit…"

Both arms slunk to her sides. The belt slipped through it's fastening and went to the ground in a dull clatter. It coiled around itself.

A raven came down, black talons striking the serpent. Shrieking, the creature writhed in instant death.

'I am so selfish. So pathetic.' Her body shook. A painful lump developed in her throat, a feeling she couldn't swallow, and she could not force back the tears that trailed slowly along her face.

'If I had my way…I'd cut the calluses off your breaking heart.'

_I don't even trust myself, but I love you._

'If I could just…move past the sternum…'

_Pull my wings apart._

'..I would cauterize your wounds, with every kiss that I could give you…'

_Pin me down under glass._

Her knees trembled, her voice croaked and wailed in quiet despair.

"…If only I could show you…that we share the same pain…!"

She was ignorant to the rest of the world. She didn't hear her name. She was oblivious to the vibrations of the door being hit repeatedly, until it was forcefully ripped from the frame as the lock cracked.

Her body whirled in hysteria, a beautiful mess as her amethyst orbs blazed vibrantly against the dark circles of her eyes with tears streaming over her flawless face.

Natsuki stared at her, eyes wide in a green hue of exasperation and confusion, her body frozen.

_I'm holding your heart in my hands._

* * *

Right. So, this is for any confusion that might have surfaced since I tend to work things cryptically:

_- _Mai realized that Natsuki was indeed suffering an addiction, for the way that the leather molded against her arm meant it had been vigorously used for that purpose, which is why she broke down.

_-_She also broke down because she is beginning to realize that she is in love with Natsuki and feels lost because of the deception in their relationship.

This is what you should have gotten out of that scene. I tend to dislike explaining things since it tends to take away from the mystery of letting you figure it out on your own, but I suppose it is better you know what is happening.

Hope this was an enjoyable chapter, and please wait to see Chapter 16._  
_


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